Loan impairments and provisions for guarantees and other off-balance sheet liabilities rose by 131.5% on the year before to EUR 59.8m. The figures include the results of asset review at Slovenian banks.

Unicredit Banka Slovenija also wrote down EUR 19.5m worth of capital investments, most of which was due to the write-down on shares of retailer Mercator, follows from a press release from the bank.

Chairman Stefan Vavti told a media briefing that the amount of impairments and provisioning put the bank on the safe side ahead of a eurozone-wide bank asset review.

The bank was submitted to stress tests and an asset review last year as part of the review in Slovenian banks, showing a minimal capital shortfall. However, as part of the Unicredit group the bank will need to go through the process again.

The bank plans to stabilise operations this year and hopes to return to profit. Performance in the first two months of the year was above plans, which are rather conservative though, Vavti says.

The bank's total assets shrank by 11.6% in 2013 to EUR 2.5bn. Vavti noted that the loss represented only 1.1% of the overall asset loss in the banking system while the bank has a 6% market share.

The bank saw a 13.5% in net interest revenue to EUR 48.4m as volume of lending dropped by 14.4% and expenditure for interest on deposits rose. Net interest revenue in the entire banking system was down 20%.

Non-interest revenue rose by 22.5% with net commissions up 8.1% to EUR 23.5m.

Deposits by households and companies increased by 26% to EUR 1.213bn and overall deposits by the non-banking sector were up 4% to EUR 1.277bn, which compares to a 5.5% fall in deposits in the banking system.

Unicredit Banka Slovenija continues to post above-average loans-to-deposits ratio at 148% despite a fall of 37 percentage points last year (the average stands at around 120%).

The bank's capital adequacy at the end of the year was 16.9%, up 3.4 percentage points on 2012. The Core Tier 1 capital ratio stood at 15.55%.

The bank reduced operating costs by 5% to EUR 35m and cut the staff to 565 from 594.