Only 3 banks and 5 insurance companies from Romania have managed gain a place among the top 50 players in their respective fields in Central and Eastern Europe, according to the rankings drawn up by Deloitte, a consulting and audit company. Although foreign groups are dominant in Romania, both the banking system and the insurance market lag behind neighbouring countries.
The top 3 Romanian banks hold different positions in the list, with the ranking comparing the volume of assets held by each entity at the end of last year.
BCR, the largest domestic bank, just made the list of the top 10 regional players in the last position. In late last year, the assets held by the bank amounted to 14bn euros.
The top position is held by OTP Bank, Hungary's largest financial group.
Deloitte took into account the group's consolidated assets for all the markets it is present on, arriving at a total of 28.4bn euros.
Overall, out of the top 10 players on the regional banking market, 3 are from the Czech Republic and 3 from Poland. Estonia, Slovenia, Romania and Hungary each have one bank among the top 10.
BRD-SocGen, the second biggest bank in the Romanian banking system, is ranked as low as eighteenth at a regional level. At the end of 2007, the bank held assets worth 8.28bn euros. The third largest domestic bank, Raiffeisen, is ranked forty-third at a regional level, with assets worth 4.1bn euros.
After the first half of 2007, several Romanian banks held assets worth above 3bn euros. The fourth player on the market, UniCredit Tiriac held assets worth 3.6bn euros. Banca Transilvania registered assets worth 3.15bn euros.
Another two domestic banks came close to these levels: Bancpost (with assets worth 3bn euros) and Alpha Bank (2.95bn euros).
Romanian banks have lost ground in the ranking because of the tactics they have adopted over the past two years - of transferring loans to shareholders abroad.
Whereas only three domestic players are present among the 50 biggest banks in the region, the top insurers in Central and Eastern Europe, in terms of the value of gross underwritten premiums, include 5 Romanian firms. However, none of these have made it into the top 10. Allianz-Tiriac, leader of the Romanian insurance market, ranks eighteenth with a 316.6m-euro turnover in 2006. Omniasig fills the thirty-third position, with gross underwritten premiums worth 152m euros last year. Asirom is only two positions away on thirty-fifth, with a 144.6m-euro turnover in 2006. Close of the bottom of the ranking (in forty-forth position) stands BCR Asigurari, with gross underwritten premiums worth 120.3m euros. The forty-seventh position is filled by Asiban the fifth largest Romanian insurer.
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