Varengold posts bumper third quarter and confirms full-year guidance
Varengold Bank has reported a 47 per cent year-on-year rise in net income to €56.2m (£49.3m) in the third quarter and confirmed that its full-year results will be at the upper end of guidance.
The Hamburg-based bank, which has funding agreements with a number of peer-to-peer lending platforms across Europe, also revealed that pre-tax profits more than doubled year-on-year to €26.7m.
Administrative expenses rose to €20.1m in the third quarter from €15.6m a year earlier, while headcount rose to 114 from 105 over the same period.
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“Once again, we have succeeded to grow in the two core business areas,” said Dr. Bernhard Fuhrmann, member of the board of managing directors of Varengold Bank. “In commercial banking or transaction banking, we have further strengthened our network with customers – in particular producers and wholesalers of food as well as medicines – and recorded a continuously positive business development.
“In addition, we have also successfully driven the expansion of our Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering in marketplace banking.”
After rolling out its BaaS offering in Germany and Australia, Varengold Bank is now providing the product for credit card settlement accounts in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland.
It has also deployed its BaaS solutions in other product categories such as credit cards, corporate and consumer loans, and buy-now-pay-later finance.
It said that further product developments and variants are in progress.
Varengold Bank also noted that the number and volume of transactions it made in the lending sector had “increased significantly”.
“We are receiving additional enquiries about refinancing beyond the pure BaaS offer,” said Fuhrmann. “There are also some opportunities that we will carefully examine and take advantage of.
“Despite the overall challenging social and economic developments, we expect to be able to continue to drive business growth and achieve our previous forecast with earnings before tax of €28m to €32m for 2022 at the upper end.”
In July, Varengold Bank raised its full-year profit guidance after a bumper first half performance. It reported pre-tax profits of €18.2m in the first half of 2022, up from €8.1m in the first half of 2021.
Varengold Bank has funding agreements with a number of alternative lending platforms across the UK and Europe, including EstateGuru, Assetz Capital, MarketFinance and LendInvest.