Fighting fit at 65

On 18 April 1956, Karel Van Rompuy founded Argenta with a starting capital of 25,000 euros. Since then it has grown into the fifth largest banking player in our country, with a primary focus on families and private individuals. Among its peers, the bank-insurer stands in a category of its own, with its offering built on the values of proximity, simplicity, price-consciousness and long-term thinking.

A successful formula, as the figures show: 65 years on, Argenta manages 52 billion euros of customer funds, earns a net profit of 219 million euros, achieves a return on equity of 7.6 % and a cost-income ratio of 59 %, and presents excellent capital ratios and liquidity buffers.

The attractive results for 2020 were achieved notwithstanding continuing pressure on the interest margin, increasing regulation and the corona pandemic.

Argenta’s success formula produced not only good financial results, but also a still very high customer satisfaction score (NPS +40), a growing customer base (gross +9%) and a strong increase in the number of digital customers (+22 %). And, despite the mandatory teleworking, we see among our employees a high engagement score (87%) and strong ambassadorship (24%).

In the context of the corona pandemic, rapid and efficient changes were made in various areas to guarantee continuity of service to the customer and to digitize this service where possible.

Argenta granted a deferral of payment to 5,134 lenders and policyholders . This represents approximately 800 million of the Belgian loan portfolio under a government-mandated moratorium, and 27 million euros of the Dutch loan portfolio. Argenta has set aside a provision of 5.8 million euros for losses on retail mortgages.

For the full press release, we refer to the file below: