Bancpost starts to see results of restructuring

The Greeks at Eurobank, majority shareholder of Bancpost,
reported a 3.3 million-euro profit for its Romanian operations in
the third quarter of the year. Since the fourth quarter of 2008,
the group had announced losses from Romanian operations. In the
first nine months of the year, Eurobank announced 4.3 million-euro
losses from its Romanian operations, lower than the 7.6
million-euro loss recorded halfway through the year. ‘We posted a
profit for the individual bank (exclusively for Bancpost), more or
less equal to that reported by the group in Romania. We set up
significant provisions in the first half of the year, and for the
second half we expect provisions to decline both in absolute terms
and as a trend,” Mihai Bogza, chief executive of Bancpost, told ZF.
According to data presented in Athens by Eurobank, non-performing
loans (for which payments are over 90 days overdue) went up by 71
million euros in the third quarter of the year, making up 10.8% of
the portfolio, compared with 3.2% in December last year.