Banca Comerciala Romana posted 202 million-euro profit last year, an increase of approximately 25% on the 2004 results, which amounted to 162 million euros, BCR”s chairman Nicolae Danila said yesterday.
The BCR official said the profit dynamics, calculated in RON under the Romanian accounting standards was of 15.6%.
“We achieved – through a strong development of the business volume and through careful risk management, a record net profit for the banks in Romania, that is 202 million euros, a value that accounts for 35% of the profit made by the entire banking system,” Danila stated.
The bank”s assets amounted to more than 9 billion euros at the end of last year, which equals a 25.7% market share. The increase in assets compared with 2004 was of 40%. A similar growth this year would take the bank”s assets to 12.6 billion euros. “We will attain an asset growth at least equal to the one in 2005 this year,” Danila said. The bank chairman went on to say that non-governmental lending played a decisive role in the growth, as it stood at 4.4 billion euros, 50% over the level in 2004.
BCR customers” deposits amounted to 6 billion euros at the end of last year, accounting for a 31% growth.
The bank also posted 1.1 billion euros in equity capitals, a return on equity of 18.8% and a return on assets of 2.3%.
Danila added the bank had significantly improved productivity per employee by 42% in terms of assets and 54% in terms of loans.
BCR”s market share of non-governmental lending stands at 26.4%, that is 24.8% for the corporate segment and 29.5% on the retail segment.
Also in terms of market share, BCR announced a figure of 28.6% for deposits, 23.9% for equity capitals and 42.1% for medium and long-term non-governmental loans.
Moreover, Danila estimates the dynamics of the banking system will come close to the level announced by the BCR, but the market leader will see hiigher growth for some positions in the balance sheet. In the opinion of the BCR chairman, the growth of the bank will be sustained by attracting new funding from the foreign markets, worth 300-400 million euros, as well as from the domestic market through the launch of bonds in RON, which will ensure resources to be used to cover demand or loans in RON for longer and longer maturities.
BCR conducted a series of operations on the foreign markets in 2005, which grossed more than one billion euros altogether.
Danila expects significant RON denominated transactions to be conducted in the near future, and mentioned the need for the bank to raise more resources in domestic currency for these reasons.
One of the major projects of this year will be the implementation of an IT system to allow networking all the 372 branches of the bank and centralising client information in a single database.
Therefore, out of the total 52 million-euro investments scheduled for 2006, some 30 million euros will be directed to the IT infrastructure.
razvan.voican@zf.ro