Postimees Digest, Thursday, January 31
31st January 2013, 16:00
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POSTIMEES:
Swedbank Estonia boasts record-breaking profit.
Swedbank's Estonian unit made a profit of 199.6 million euros last year making for the bank's all-time best result. Head of the bank Priit Perens said that the record profit was the result of falling loan losses provisions, down 39.5 million euros y-o-y in 2012, while the bank's operating profit was actually smaller than last year's. Perens added that despite the bank's results, consumers and companies remain cautious and modest when it comes to borrowing and that the profit will not result in major bonuses for bankers.
Ansip considers EC fine to be unlikely.
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said that it is highly unlikely that Estonia will have to pay a fine for non-full compliance with EU energy and gas directives as the country will definitely have complied with all requirements by the time the relevant court dispute reaches a conclusion.
The European Commission announced last week that it will sue Estonia, Bulgaria and Great Britain for failure to adopt the union's energy and gas internal market directives in 2011. The PM said that Estonia has not been made aware of what exactly the commission finds unsatisfactory as of yet. The commission is looking to fine Estonia 5,068 euros per day for every energy directive not complied with and 4,224 euros per day for every gas directive not complied with.
Energy companies anticipate problems with first open market invoices.
Member of the board of Eesti Energia Margus Rink said that the first settlement periods in February and March promise to be somewhat problematic as massive information systems used to handle open market data will probably exhibit some flaws.
Transmission network operator Elering's data bank system is considered vulnerable as some problems will only manifest once the system comes fully online. "I believe that while hundreds of thousands of invoices will move through the system without problems, we will need to work harder with some," Rink said.