Romania helps in awarding BA/CA

Bank Austria Creditanstalt Financial Group, also operating in Romania, was designated the bank with the best Internet service offer in the entire Central and Eastern Europe.

The award will be presented in Washington in October. Romania is the second country after Slovakia, where Bank Austria, member of Germany-based HypoVereinsbank Group, decided to implement its new integrated Internet strategy.

“Following thorough market studies, we came to the conclusion that Internet penetration in Romania is quite high, even higher than in Poland. The Romanians are open to knowledge. This was one of the reasons why Romania was chosen to be the second market for Internet banking to be introduced.

Furthermore, we do not have a well-knit branch network, so that the Internet is the easiest way to attract clients,” the management of the BA/CA Bucharest branch said when the Internet-banking was launched in Romania.

At present, the Austria-based banking group operates the Internet Banking module, also known as Online Banking, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Similar services are scheduled to become operational in Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary by the end of 2001.

Bank Austria Creditanstalt is the member of the HypoVereinsbank (HVB) Group in charge with the Central and Eastern European region. The group’s network comprises 750 branches in 13 countries, with 20,000 employees for 2.6 million clients.