Raiffeisen seeks bigger market share

Raiffeisen sees the year 2006 as an opportunity for furthering its growth, given that the biggest bank on the market, BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank) will focus on its internal issues, linked to reorganisation and restructuring after privatisation, and the new contender, UniCredit/HVB/Tiriac will also become more involved in the integration and consolidation of its operations, Steven van Groningen, chairman of Raiffeisen, told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.

“Tactically, I see in this context an opportunity to expand our market share. We have no more huge projects, we are a healthy bank, and we are not entering any consolidation stage, either. We want to keep being dynamic in the future,” says Van Groningen.

Considering his expertise in bank restructuring, Van Groningen believes that Erste Bank will need at least one year to thoroughly become acquainted with and control BCR, and another year to optimise the bank”s activities. In his opinion, the Austrians will seek, for the position of BCR chairman, a banker with solid expertise in retail and restructuring, thought highly of in the financial sector, most likely an expat. “I know only of 2 or 3 Romanian bankers who would have the necessary skills. Moreover, an expat does not need to remain friends with anybody after the 3 years of mandate he will serve,” says Steven van Groningen.

The banking chief admits that Raiffeisen has not met its target of reaching a 10% market share of the banking system assets in 2005.

Last autumn, Herbert Stepic, chairman of Raiffeisen International, the majority stakeholder in Raiffeisen Bank Romania, even mentioned a 12% target, though in the first half of the year the bank registered a decline in its market share, to 8.8%. After the first nine months of 2005, Raiffeisen Bank had total assets worth 2.887 billion euros, 38.5% higher than at the end of 2004.

Van Groningen says that, beyond the unquestionable supremacy of BCR and BRD, the situation is much more ambiguous in the case of positions 3, 4 and 5 on the market, which are very close to one another and can be distorted by moves at the level of assets, partly determined by NBR restrictions on foreign currency lending. For instance, Raiffeisen Bank in December sold assets worth almost 300 million euros, which damaged its market share at the very end of the year.

razvan.voican@zf.ro