FORUM’s strategic objective is to maintain and strengthen its position as one of the leading banks inUkraine in the corporate and retail banking sectors, and in particular to join and maintain a position as one of the top ten Ukrainian banks measured by total assets. The key elements of the Bank’s strategy are listed below.

Retail Banking

Increasing FORUM’s share of the retail banking market in Ukraine, by growing the number of retail customers, is a key focus of the Bank. In order to maintain the quality of its retail loan asset base, the Bank plans to focus on mortgage loans (having a 10–15 year maturity and secured upon real estate), car financing loans (secured upon new cars purchased by the borrower), and to a lesser extent on collateralised consumer loans. FORUM Bank also plans to develop its retail lending activities by offering collateralised overdraft and consumer loan facilities to the employees of its corporate clients. The Bank intends to broaden the range of products that it offers to retail customers. For example, FORUM Bank plans to increase the number of debit and credit cards that it issues to retail customers, and identify retail clients with a high net worth and strong credit history, with whom the Bank believes it may have particular cross-selling opportunities for the Bank’s products, including foreign exchange transactions and precious metals transactions.

Corporate Banking

FORUM plans to continue to grow and develop its corporate banking business by focusing on the main sectors of the Ukrainian economy such as chemicals, oil-refining, metallurgy, telecommunications and trade, as well as on growth industries such as construction, food production and agriculture. However, the Bank will seek to maintain a broad diversity of corporate customers in terms of both geographical and industry concentration. FORUM Bank will continue to develop and broaden the range of products that it offers to corporate customers, in particular by identifying customers which contribute significantly to the Bank’s income, loan portfolio or deposit base, and offering such customers an individually tailored package of services, including an assigned relationship manager.

SME Banking

The Bank plans to continue to develop its SME lending and banking business as a separate sub-division within its corporate banking business and to develop a standardised package of products and services for SME customers. FORUM plans to implement a «financial supermarket» strategy targeting SMEs and to offer them, in addition to traditional banking services such as lending, overdraft facilities and cash management, other financial services such as insurance, leasing, brokerage and asset management. The Bank will continue to participate in SME lending programmes funded by the EBRD and the GUF. FORUM believes that its network expansion programme will assist it in gaining access to further SME business.

Widen existing and create new distribution channels

FORUM Bank is pursuing the growth of its customer base and its loan and deposit portfolios by expanding its network in the most populated and economically developed cities and regions of Ukraine (Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, the Mykolayiv region, the Crimea and other industrial centres). FORUM intends to focus heavily on training the staff it recruits for these new branches and outlets, in order to provide a consistently high standard of customer service. The Bank intends to expand the network of its ATMs as well as develop its point of sale («POS») terminal network. POS terminals are machines other than ATMs which allow customers to make cash withdrawals from their accounts and allow retailers to accept payments for goods and services, and which are located in shops and offices not owned by the Bank, as well as in smaller branches and outlets which do not have ATMs. FORUM Bank also plans to develop its network of self-service points («Self-Service Points»). Self-Service Points are small unstaffed premises, located at large trade centres, which contain a variety of automated services including ATMs and informational-transactional terminals («Kiosks»), which allow customers full access to information on their accounts in addition to electronic payment services. FORUM Bank will also continue to develop internet banking, short-message service («SMS») banking and other alternative distribution systems in order to attract new, and retain existing, customers.

Diversifying and enhancing stability of funding base

Taking into account the growing demand of the Bank’s customers for longer-term financing, the Bank intends to continue to strengthen its funding base by augmenting its market share in long-term deposits from retail and corporate customers. FORUM Bank is also seeking to increase the proportion of retail deposits in its funding base. In addition, the Bank will continue to attract international long-term funding, such as syndicated loans from international financial institutions and the Notes. Expanding international network and profile FORUM will continue to expand its international profile with continued cooperation with international financial institutions such as the EBRD, the World Bank, International Finance Corporation and others. The Bank also sees opportunities for increased cooperation with partner banks from Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the CIS. FORUM Bank will also continue to expand its international branch network, and in addition to a recently opened representative office in Prague, the Czech Republic, plans to open a representative office in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Promote brand image

FORUM Bank is implementing a network-wide corporate branding strategy in order to broaden public awareness of the Bank. FORUM is actively promoting its brand via intensive marketing to existing and new customers, including through the targeted use of printed and broadcast media advertising. FORUM Bank will also seek to enhance its profile by using alternative advertising media such as e-marketing and web advertising. The Bank plans to continue its sponsorship initiatives in Ukraine and extend the variety of its charities and community projects that it supports.

Enhance management processes and risk management system

FORUM is pursuing a comprehensive reform of its management organisation structure in order to continue to successfully manage the growth of the Bank. As part of this reorganisation, the Bank will improve its risk management systems. The improvements in the Bank’s risk management systems include an enhanced realtime reporting system whereby the Bank’s head office can monitor branch and outlet activity as it occurs, and improvements to other management information systems.