SocGen attracts the most clients in Romania

Romania ranked first in terms of new individual clients attracted last year by the French financial group Societe Generale, with a total of 256,000 clients. Serbia ranks second with 111,000 people. The French own BRD, the second leading bank in the system, with a market share of about 14%. The total number of new clients seen by Societe Generale in 2005 for banking retail activities was 626,000. At a European level, not taking France into consideration, the French group gained 475,000 new individual clients, with their total number growing over four-fold from 1999 until now. Societe Generale opened 233 new branches in 2005, 102 of which just in the last three months of the year, most of them in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Egypt. Net profit of the group increased by 35.5% compared with 2004, from 3.2 billion euros to 4.4 billion euros. ZF