Banking assets slowly but steadily up

The total banking assets went up in real terms, by 5.4 % to 14.18bn euros in the first nine months of last year, NBR’s latest data show, after having progressed by more than 8.5% in 2002. What did the figures look like at the end of September? Raiffeisen and ABN are still the fastest growing banks in terms of assets, ranking second and third among the foreign-controlled banks operating on the Romanian market, with assets amounting to 910 million euros and 845 million euros respectively. As a comparison, the two banks were managing assets worth 802 million euros and 744 million euros at the end of the first half. The group of the most active foreign-controlled banks is still topped by BRD, which did not manage to report more than 8% growth in banking assets to 1,910 million euros in the third quarter. Far behind ABN Amro, as their assets are about half of those on top, are the banks that comprise the so-called second echelon. This group includes Alpha Bank – 479.4 million euro assets and 3.4% market share in late September, Citibank – 3.1% of the market and 444.2 million euro assets and HVB Bank – 2.9% of the market and 416.7 million euro assets. ZF