Why Austrian bankers care about Romania

Austria has the highest banking exposure to Romania by far, followed by Greece, with France and Italy far behind.

Romania is the second biggest market in the world as far as Austrian banks are concerned, whose local exposure stands at almost 30 billion euros, which explains why the keen interest of bankers in Vienna for what goes on in Bucharest.
With the financial turmoil in Europe, the weight of the exposure of the banks of a specific country to foreign economies with various vulnerability levels becomes even more important, as interconnection of money flows comes with mutual risks: if Romania does not come out of the crisis, this would cause trouble for the Austrian banking system.
Exposure to Romania accounts for more than 10% of Austria’s GDP, and at the same time for almost 8% of the total loans granted by Austrian bankers abroad that stand at some 390 billion euros, according to the data processed by the Bank for International Settlements.
The banking system in Greece, already affected by the local problems, has an almost 17 billion-euro exposure to Romania, while France, through the second biggest bank on the market, BRD, has a local exposure of only 12 billion euros. The exposure of Italy, operating on this market though UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, amounts to less than 10 billion euros. In all, European banks’ exposure stands at about 80 billion euros in Romania.