Ljubljana - The Slovenian subsidiary of UniCredit, the Italian banking group, saw its net profit drop by 54% last year to EUR 6 million despite slightly higher revenue, show figures released by the parent company.

The Italian group is present in Slovenia with the bank UniCredit Banka Slovenije, leasing company UniCredit Leasing and real estate manager UCTAM Upravljanje.

The group's consolidated revenue in Slovenia rose by 2% last year to EUR 72 million; net interest income was down by 3.5% to EUR 44 million and net fees and commissions fell by 7.5% to EUR 21 million. The growth in revenue was due to net trading income rising to EUR 7 million from EUR 2 million in 2020.

There had been speculation a while ago that UniCredit might reduce its presence in Slovenia or withdraw from the country altogether.

However, citing information from the group, the newspaper Finance has reported that it does not appear from the new strategic plan for 2022-2024 the group will sell its bank in Slovenia. But the sale of the leasing company, which has not concluded any new contracts in about a year, is said to be on the cards.

The parent UniCredit group posted EUR 1.54 billion in net profit to bounce back from EUR 2.78 billion loss in 2020. Discounting one-off events, the profit amounted to EUR 3.9 billion.