Aggressive battle for retail puts Piraeus among top ten banks

The Greeks at Piraeus Bank have become one of the top ten banks on the market in terms of assets, with 4.1% share of the market, while ING Bank slipped out of the top ten, reveals a ranking put together by UniCredit. Piraeus thus follows the Austrians at Volksbank, who took the leap into top ten straight to number eight a year ago, which they retain today. Therefore the results of an aggressive race for market share especially on the retail segment are starting to show, considering the Dutch at ING maintained a conservative policy risk management-wise. According UniCredit’s ranking, the top ten includes four Austrian-controlled banks – BCR, Raiffeisen, UniCredit (Bank Austria Creditanstalt) and Volksbank and three Greek-held banks – Bancpost, Alpha Bank and Piraeus. At the same, Banca Transilvania holds its ground in fourth place as one of the few Romanian-held banks, yet some analysts say the time has come to focus on profitability rather than fight for a market share, which is ever more costly.