Poupet, BRD: We are cutting costs to maintain results

We are making significant cost cutting efforts because the ability to boost revenues is limited, and loan-loss provisions will not see a marked decline this year, says Guy Poupet, president of BRD-SocGen, the second-largest bank on the Romanian market.
“If we want to preserve our result and volume of activity, we need to be mindful of general costs. The level of non-performing loans should not worsen, but the cost of risk will see a slow decline, which will be dependent on the pace of economic recovery. In the second half of the year I don’t expect a significant reduction in the cost of risk, perhaps a gradual one,” Poupet told ZF in an interview.
In the first half of the year the bank’s general costs fell 5%, while personnel costs fell by 3.2%. However, the net profit declined by 13.7%, to 367 million RON (88.5 million euros).