Andreea Surducan, F.S.E.G.A.

, 1st year

The Banking System in Romania

- short presentation -

The banking system is one of the most important parts, if not even the most
important one, within an economy. It can determine the growth or cause the collapse not
only of one country, but it influences in a great measure the global economy. Surely, in
the case of a, God forbidden, downfall of the banking system in Romania the
repercussions wouldn’t be so critical for the rest of the world. So, Romania isn’t a super
power but still our economy today has evolved since we closed the chapter of the
command economy in 1989 – and at the top of the most competitive sectors we find the
banking system.
In order to make a short classification, I can say that nowadays there are 40
institutions of credit in our country, as it follows: 39 banks (from which – 2 with a major
state capital, 3 with a major Romanian capital, within 26 banks the money are invested
mostly by foreigner financial groups and the rest of the 8 institutions represent branches
of some foreign banks) and the Central Group of the Credit Cooperatives (Creditcoop).
Furthermore, from the perspective of services offered by the banks, it is known that most
of the institutions approach general areas of the commercial banking operations
(corporate or retail) but some of them have concentrated on certain types of services: for
example Eximbank finances the export-import operations, HVB and Raiffeisen’s most
important banking products are mortgages, CEC Bank’s object of activity are the saving
deposits for the population and since 2004 we even have a bank specialized in car
leasing – the Porsche Bank.
It is important to remind the fact that more than 60% of the banking assets (which
exceed, in total, 51 mld. Euros) are owned by the top 5 banks from the system. Also, the
banking system can meet its overall long-term expenses in a proportion of almost 20%,
having a solvency indicator of 17.8%.

Page 1 of 3
Andreea Surducan, F.S.E.G.A., 1st year

The National Bank of Romania (which was created in 1880) has the specific
responsibilities of any national bank’s – to define and implement the monetary policy and
the exchange rate policy, to conduct the authorization, regulation and supervision of
credit institutions, to issue banknotes and coins as legal tender on the territory of
Romania, to set the exchange regime and to supervise its observance and last, but not
least, to manage the official reserves of Romania.
So, the banking system of Romania doesn’t sound bad at all – it has progressed
greatly up to meeting more and more needs of the population and has a better defined
structure from year to year, but as I mentioned in the introduction it isn’t perfect.
In the last years, new segments of the population have become eligible (and in the
same time clients) for the bank loans, primary because of the relatively stable
unemployment rate (below 8%) and the increase in PIB. Thus, the not so extended
banking system found itself in the position of not being able to cope with the hundreds of
thousands of new customers, but it acted quickly, according to the circumstances: almost
2000 branches were formed in 2006 and more than 3000 in the year 2007. And so, the
problems start to appear: first of all, this mass extension of the system was realized
without having too many specialists. According to the statistics, the number of the
complaints received from the clients excelled 80000 in 2007 and it is foreseen to reach
130000 at the end of this year. Then, another problem stems from the fact that there is a
small number of banks that practically control the market – a safer and more capable
market of facing the potential crisis is, of course, one divided into smaller parts among a
greater number of players. Also, the banks have put an emphasis on the services for the
population living in the urban areas – due to the greater transactional costs for the rural
population and perhaps because it is easier to work with the first category of citizens.
But the banks have noticed all these issues, and things are changing – slowly but
steadily. EFSE (European Fund for Southeast Europe) encourages the banks initiatives to
get involved on a larger scale in the rural side, making investments of more than 100 mil.
Euros until 2011 and around 19 mil. Euros this year alone in the agricultural sector. In
addition, banks are finding new ways of hiring specialists and of extending not only on a
quantitative but a qualitative base. For example, BCR (the Commercial Romanian Bank)
has started a professional development program, at the end of which the participants are

Page 2 of 3
Andreea Surducan, F.S.E.G.A., 1st year

taking tests that reveal their theoretical and practical financial knowledge. Besides this,
the top graduators of the program are given the chance to work within the bank after a
paid internship period. Other original projects have been developed, such as BT Cafe –
the first banking cafe in the country, where businessmen are able to make various
transactions or talk about investments while enjoying a cup of coffee, a project sponsored
by the Transylvanian Bank.
These cases and many others show the increasing innovation and interest in the
customer satisfaction that lead to a continuous race within the banking system in
Romania. At the same time it creates an appeal for the foreign investors, transforming the
banking system into one of the most competitive sectors of the Romanian economy.

Bibliography:

www.zf.ro
www.bloombiz.ro
www.wikipedia.ro
www.bcr.ro/bcrro
www.bancatransilvania.ro
www.bnr.ro
www.arb.ro

Page 3 of 3