Henk Muller ends second term as head of ABN Amro Romania

Henk Mulder, 51, chairman of ABN Amro Romania, has ended his second mandate at the top of the Romanian branch of the Dutch banking group.

He will be succeeded by Peter W. Weiss, the current chief of operations in Athens, banking sources told Ziarul Financiar.

Mulder set up the ABN Amro business in Romania in the autumn of 1995 and led the banka??s operations until 1999. In the summer of 2002, he returned to Bucharest to take over the position of chairman following the resignation of Robert Rekkers, who left for a similar position with Banca Transilvania.

Mulder has worked for ABN since 1983. In the future, he will take over the groupa??s operations in Indonesia.

According to the groupa??s employment rules, no one can hold the position of chairman for more than three consecutive years. The news of Muldera??s departure was still greeted with surprise on the banking market, however, despite recent rumours of talks between the ABN Amro Romania head and the shareholders of other banks in connection with a chairman position.

After another three-year term in Romania, Mulder will leave in his wake a fledgling project for products and services in the consumer-banking sector. The decision at group level to approve investment in this sector was taken as late as the beginning of last year, and the first products were launched in the autumn of 2004. Investment has been limited so far, and there has been as yet no expansion of the 15-strong branch network. Cash management and electronic banking services were also developed in parallel.