Last Updated on Thursday, 12 August, 2021 at 10:13 am by Andre Camilleri
During 2021, MeDirect Group continued to accelerate its investment programme to build its highly customer centric app combining a broad range of investment services seamlessly integrated with daily banking functionality.
The Group’s technology platform has been undergoing an impressive transformation for over the past two years, by leveraging on a unique flexible and scalable technologies along with the objective of delivering best-in-class user experience to support its mission of making digital investment simple, inclusive and empowering for all. Later this year, the Group will launch exciting new functionality to its website, mobile app and other customer touch points.
“In the first half of 2021, MeDirect Group maintained steady progress as it achieved strong growth in all those business lines targeted for new investment, resulting in an encouraging profitable performance following 2020 which was a year impacted by significant impairment provisions due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Arnaud Denis, Chief Executive Officer of MeDirect Group.
In the first six months of 2021, MeDirect Group continued to implement its balance sheet diversification by actively planning the launch of its future Belgium residential mortgage business line and by successfully launching the home loan business in Malta earlier in 2021.
In addition, the Group continued to achieve positive growth in business volumes in jurisdictions in which it operates. In fact, over the past 12 months, total clients in Belgium and Malta increased by 15 per cent to 83,000, leading to a 31 per cent increase in assets under management with an all-time high of Eur0.8 billion (44 per cent increase) in Belgium and Eur0.6 billion (18 per cent increase) in Malta.
Over the past twelve months, the Dutch residential mortgage origination volumes grew by Eur1.0 billion (168 per cent increase) and corporate lending in Malta increased by 25 per cent to Eur108.4 million as the Group continued to support the local economy.
By starting to benefit from a more diversified business model and given the improving credit outlook, the Group achieved a promising performance in the first half of 2021 as profit before tax was Eur3.2 million compared to a significant loss last year driven by prudent provisioning to reflect the impact of COVID-19.
MeDirect Group continued de-risking its international corporate lending portfolio such that, since the beginning of the financial year, the gross size of the portfolio has been reduced by 24 per cent from Eur903.4 million to Eur691.1 million and by 46 per cent over the last twelve months.
The gross outstanding balances of the Dutch mortgage book grew by 32 per cent throughout this financial period and as at 30 June 2021 amounted to Eur1.6 billion. Total funding increased as a result of the funding from the Dutch mortgage securitisation transactions that increased from Eur348.2 million to Eur682.6 million.
The Group’s liquidity remained robust, and capital ratios remained well above minimum requirements. The total capital ratio remained high at 19.3 per cent as at 30 June 2021. MeDirect Group’s liquidity reserves remained strong at Eur601 million as at 30 June 2021, and the Group’s LCR stood at 625 per cent.
Mr Denis concluded: “The Group’s financial performance improved with lower impairment charges, better capital ratios. Although the outlook for the rest of the year remains challenging, MeDirect continues its accelerated transformation into a leading retail WealthTech banking platform and is working strongly to revert to sustainable profitability in the medium term as we remain disciplined but cautiously optimistic as the economic recovery unfolds.”
