Banca Romaneasca brand to leave market

A year and a half after its takeover of Banca Romaneasca, National Bank of Greece (NBG) is preparing to establish its brand on the market and will drop the name and image of the bank it acquired. The unification of the Romanian bank with the local NBG branch is due for completion by the middle of this month.

“This is a difficult project that involves changing the corporate image and we are conducting it across the whole region. We are researching what to keep and what not,” said Yiannis Pehlivanidis, the vice-president of the National Bank of Greece.

The general manager of Banca Romaneasca, Andreas Maragkoudakis, believes the Banca Romaneasca brand is not very powerful on the market, despite having been established in 1993. It also uses the colour yellow, which is not specific to Banca Romaneasca and is also used by Raiffeisen Bank, a much more powerful brand.

The NBG vice-president admitted that the changes at Banca Romaneasca could have happened faster in the 15 months since the takeover, however was optimistic after receiving the results for the first few months of the year. “May came with a extraordinary increase in lending,” he said. According to Maragkoudakis, there was an increase of 16 million euros in real estate and consumer loans in May.

Banca Romaneasca”s assets were worth some 520 million euros four months into the year, twice the amount for the same period in 2004.

“We are working with a three-year business plan that entails very aggressive organic growth,” explained Agis Leopoulos, the NBG”s general manager of international operations. He says their immediate priorities are expanding the network from the current 33 branches to 47 by the end of the year, entering the leasing market, reactivating the Eteba securities firm and consolidating Garanta insurance company. razvan.voican@zf.ro