In the first quarter of 2026, the ProCredit group continued to implement its strategic priorities across its markets. In this short interview, Chief Financial Officer Christian Dagrosa shares his perspective on the group’s first quarter performance and the key themes shaping the start of the year.
Q: Christian, how would you summarise ProCredit’s start to 2026?
Christian: We had a solid and well-balanced start to the year. Our growth and transformation strategy is clearly progressing: We saw good momentum across the business, with ongoing growth in both our loan portfolio and our client base, but more important than the growth itself was its quality, as it was driven by profitable expansion in our higher yielding segments of micro and small enterprises as well as retail. We are particularly encouraged by the accelerated growth of our client base, driven above all by strong momentum in the micro client segment, where we added around 3,500 clients within a single quarter – four times as many as in the first quarter of 2025. From a financial perspective, the first quarter developed solidly, with higher net interest income and early signs that the structural improvements we’ve been working on are starting to take effect.
Q: What were the main drivers behind the growth in the first quarter?
Christian: Growth this quarter was clearly driven by our focus on micro and retail clients. Our loan portfolio continued to expand at a good pace, increasing by around EUR 200 million, or about 2.6%, in the first quarter. More than 80% of that growth came from lending to micro and small enterprises as well as retail clients. As a result, these lower-volume segments now account for around 49% of our total loan portfolio, up almost four percentage points compared to last year.
On the funding side, customer deposits remained broadly stable. We saw a small decline, mainly due to seasonal outflows from business accounts, while deposits from retail and micro clients developed in line with the strong growth we saw in client numbers.
The acceleration in client number growth is driven by a sharper strategic focus on acquisition, enhanced acquisition processes, and the progressive rollout of key strategic initiatives.
Q: How do the results reflect ProCredit’s financial stability and outlook?
Christian: Overall, the start of the year has been solid and well balanced. However, the near term profitability remains moderate as we are still in a transition and investment phase and are affected by additional factors including the planned divestiture of ProCredit Bank Ecuador, lower net fee income related to the euro introduction in Bulgaria, and temporarily elevated tax expenses in Ukraine.
At the same time, we can see that our transition phase is taking effect and we remain encouraged by the strong growth momentum across the business and the good progress achieved in key strategic areas, particularly the rollout of digital banking initiatives. These measures are designed to unlock further scalability, support profitable growth in higher yielding segments, and strengthen the group’s income generating capacity over the medium term.