Citibank Romania meets SMEs halfway

Citibank Romania, subsidiary of the world’s largest financial group – Citigroup, is launching banking operations for small and medium-sized enterprises this month. It believes this is one of the few segments, except for retail operations, that will grow in the future. “We decided to enter the market of small and medium-sized enterprises, which our internal rules define as those companies posting $1 to $20 million turnover, when we came to the conclusion that the Romanian banking market has made significant progress. This is the third year of economic growth in a row, after all,” Dan Sandu, Citibank Romania vice-president in charge of SMEs told Ziarul Financiar. According to Sandu, unlike the other players on this segment, which are merely distributors of credits paid from their own or external resources to SMEs, Citibank has a different approach. “Actually, we are the first bank to have focused on this segment. We have a dedicated team that will total 30 people by yearend. The market was analysed, dissected, we will know exactly where to go instead of waiting for clients to come to us. This is a different approach,” Sandu added. ZF