Banca Romaneasca gets 130m euros

Banca Romaneasca will receive a capital inflow

of 130 million euros from its main shareholder, the National Bank of Greece (NBG) next year, in order to overcome NBR”s restriction on foreign currency lending. Since the end of September, when the

central bank decided that the total volume of foreign currency loans granted by a specific bank must not exceed the bank”s own funds by more than three times, Banca Romaneasca has been unable to grant loans in foreign currency. The new cash inflow would help sustain the continuation of the bank”s organic growth, according to the nine-month financial report of Greece”s largest financial group. Moreover, Banca Romaneasca”s network is to increase from

its current 40 branches, to 65 by the end of 2006.

Nine months into this year, Banca Romaneasca

posted 3.2 million euro profits, down 36% from the same time last year, due to an increase in expenses. At the same time, return on equity fell from 44%

to 16%. ZF