Piraeus Bank Bulgaria reported a net profit of 45.9 million leva for 2009, a bank statement said on March 4 2010. According to the statement, the bank has reported growth in all business segments, which strengthened the bank's position despite the economic downturn in the country.

Total assets of the bank stood at 3.6 billion leva at year-end, confirming the position of one of the leading financial institutions among top ten commercial banks in Bulgaria, the statement said.

Deposits grew by three per cent, reaching 1.3 billion leva, with the biggest growth being in the retail area, where the newly-attracted funds reached 144 million leva.

Net interest income of the bank was 135 million leva.

Network expansion continued in 2009 with the opening of seven new branches and two dedicated Business Centers in Sofia and Varna on the Black Sea. The total network of the bank now reached 101 branches nationwide, covering all strategic towns.

The bank's key performance indicators remained stable and well above the market average, the statement said.

Non-performing loans at the end of 2009 rose to 2.4 per cent, compared to 1.1 per cent at the end of 2008. Return on equity stood at 9.4 per cent at the year end, return on assets was 1.2 per cent and the cost/income ratio decreased to 42.9 per cent.

"Despite the difficulties in world and regional economies, Piraeus Bank Bulgaria managed to maintain and enhance its market position as by far one of the best performing banks in the country in this respect," Piraeus Bank Bulgaria chief executive Athanasios Koutsopoulos said.

"The net profit of the bank and the decrease of total assets are mainly due to securitisation of assets outside of the country and when added, the result of Piraeus Bank Bulgaria changes to 56.9 million leva. Piraeus Bank will definitely be among the leading banks in Bulgaria towards the exit of the crisis," he said.

The bank's statement comes two days after it was announced that Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov had requested additional technical assistance from the European financial institutions on whether there was liquidity drain to Greece from Greek banks operating on the Bulgarian banking market.

"I will either get such a reassurance in three weeks, or start worrying more," Dyankov was quoted as saying on March 1 2010.

Prime Minister Boiko Borissov told news agency Reuters that Bulgarian banks had taken steps to prevent Greek banks from withdrawing liquidity from their Bulgarian subsidiaries.

Officials from Greek banks operating in Bulgaria told Bulgarian-language Dnevnik there was no liquidity outflow.

"There’s no such outflow of deposits from Postbank to our main shareholder EFG Eurobank," Postbank executive director Assen Yagodin told Dnevnik.

As at end-2009, the Greek-owned Bulgarian lenders - United Bulgarian Bank (UBB, Postbank, Piraeus Bank Bulgaria, Emporiki Bank Bulgaria and Alpha Bank Sofia Branch - had assets of about 20.5 billion leva, which represented 29 per cent of the sector’s total.