OP Financial Group’s Year 2021

OP Financial Group and its owner-customers have been building Finnish society already for 120 years. OP Financial Group’s Year 2021 describes how the Group executed its mission and strategy in 2021.

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Key figures and ratios 2021

OP Financial Group, which is owned by its customers, is Finland’s largest financial services group. Our mission is to promote the sustainable prosperity, security and wellbeing of our owner-customers and operating region.

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Review by the President and Group Chief Executive Officer

Our record-high earnings prove that our strategic focus on our core business is delivering results.
Timo Ritakallio, President and Group Chief Executive Officer

While our mission has remained unchanged for decades, our rapidly changing business environment requires us to reshape our strategy continuously. Updated in 2021, our strategy embeds the corporate responsibility and ESG perspectives even more firmly in our business.

Our goal is to be the leading and most appealing financial services group in Finland. We have made successful strategic choices in the right direction in a changing business environment: our customer business made strong progress in all our customer segments, and our earnings were at an excellent level throughout the year. Our record-high earnings prove that our strategic focus on our core business – banking and insurance – is delivering results.

While the Covid-19 pandemic continued to cause a variety of uncertainties, the Finnish economy remained on its recovery and growth path, as expected. Our customers’ repayment capacity remained good as reflected by the year-on-year decrease in impairment loss on receivables. Our customers were also particularly active in the capital market, and demand for investment services was high. While 2021 was also a very lively year in the home loan market, the peak season began to level off towards the end of the year.

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Together through time

OP Financial Group has been helping people to build their wealth and wellbeing, and building a sustainable future, already for 120 years.

Our strategy

Our mission, core values, vision and strategic priorities form a cohesive whole. Updated in autumn 2021, our strategy sets five strategic priorities for the next few years: value for customers; profitable growth; efficient, high-quality operations; responsible business and highly skilled, motivated and satisfied personnel.

Highlights 2021

Investment in mutual funds showed strong growth

In February, OP Financial Group passed the one-million-unitholder milestone. During 2021. OP’s mutual funds attracted 187,000 new unitholders, and around 180,000 new agreements were made on systematic investment. In August, we passed the milestone of 500,000 active agreements on direct, systematic investment in mutual funds.

Customers’ interest grew in responsible investment products: the number of unitholders in OP-Climate, our most popular fund, had grown by 85% by the end of the year.

A record year for home loans

2021 was a very lively year in the housing market. New home loans issued to customers were 18.5% higher in total value than a year ago. Home and other property sales brokered by OP Koti real estate agents grew by almost 10%.

OP Financial Group’s strategy emphasises responsibility

The Supervisory Council of OP Financial Group’s central cooperative confirmed the Group’s updated strategy in August. Responsible business was selected as a new strategic priority. Guided by growing stakeholder expectations and regulation, we are embedding corporate responsibility and ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) perspectives even more firmly in our investment and lending processes. Responsible products and services account for a continuously growing share of our offering.