Fortis Bank
Fortis Bank wins the award again this year for weathering the storms that hit European banks hard in 2002 as well as for its impressive domestic and foreign expansion.
Despite the adverse conditions, the bank’s customer focus, significant cost savings and strict risk management helped it to eke out a small gain in net profit and obtain its best operating performance ever. With net core capital totalling E17.6bn – 81% above the legally required minimum – the bank’s solvency position remained strong, too.
Starting with the acquisition of Intertrust Group, a private banking specialist, 2002 marked a significant expansion campaign. Intertrust has been merged with Fortis’s private bank MeesPierson, and the two businesses complement one another in terms of location and client portfolio.
Fortis Investment Management, the bank’s asset management arm, also announced a joint venture with Chinese securities house Haitong Securities. Fortis has great expectations for the venture, as asset management is still virgin territory in China. Elsewhere in China, Fortis’s joint venture with life insurer Taiping Life continued to bear fruit.
The bank’s other big foreign expansion last year was a joint venture with Maybank, Malaysia’s biggest financial services provider.
