Banca Comercială Carpatica, headquartered in Sibiu and controlled by businessman Ilie Carabulea, is part of the “little league” of lending institutions, with a share of less than 1% in the over 78bn-euro total assets of the domestic banking system.
Ever since it was set up, in 1999, the bank has built its strategy around funding SMEs, with the lender betting on supporting Romanian capital.
Over the past two years, though, the SME sector has been the hardest hit by the financial crisis and economic downturn, with the situation reflecting in the balance of loans.
Thus, at the end of the first half, Carpatica reported a bad loan indicator of 56.08%, while the average in the banking system stands at 17.8%.
More exactly, the value of loans the bank doubts it will recoup revolves around 694m RON, while the total value of gross funding granted by the bank stood at 1.23bn RON in late June.
To cover bad loan risk, Carpatica set up 146.7m RON provisions in the first half. The provisions drove the bank into the red, as its operating income reached 40m RON in the six months ended June 30.

Subiecte #Carpatica#Romanian banks