Market warming up to self-banking after five years

The banking model where clients carry out basic operations
individually is now implemented in no less than ten banks on the
Romanian market, only five years after the market received the
project of Dutch-held ING with scepticism. Although so far ING has
remained the only bank on the Romanian market brave enough to bet
everything on the “self-banking” model, the number of banks
resorting to such solutions is on a continuous rise. The need to
cut operating costs in the context of the financial crisis has in
fact encouraged the use of machines for basic operations. BCR, BRD
and Raiffeisen, leaders of the banking system, have been testing
this model for several years now, but have not used it extensively.
However, BRD has installed machines in its branches, which allow
payment of bills issued by utility suppliers. The latest to
introduce the system is UniCredit Tiriac, which replaced the
tellers of the offices in Metro stores with ATMs that work
non-stop. The bank set up such machines in all its 24 offices in
Metro stores, with the project expanded in a further 28 sales
centres across Romania.