The financial market''s hunger for bankers knows no limits. An increasing number of the current total of 39 banks - from the big players to the small - are now struggling to expand their branch networks due to staff shortages.
With experience an extremely important asset in this field, banks have taken to poaching employees from one another, offering ever-higher salaries that are approaching Western levels. To top it all, the pressure is continuously rising, especially when new players enter the market, either by setting up from scratch or through a takeover of an existing bank.
Just how high is the demand for bankers? The most recent example is that of the Romanian branch of Italian bank San Paolo IMI. While trying to re-launch its operations, the bank is trying to recruit 22 branch managers, as well as a number of accountants and credit officers. San Paolo currently has 25 branches spread over 17 counties, but in the period 2006-2008 it plans to open branches in all the counties of the country and to strengthen its presence in major cities such as Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Constanta, Iasi and Brasov.
New bank branches are opening almost every week. BCR, for example, managed to open six branches in a single day. Smaller banks like Volksbank and Romexterra have also announced new locations.
Clearly this expansion process cannot continue without the hiring of new employees. But just how hard has it become to recruit an experienced banker?
"I don''t know how others are managing, but we are coping with the difficulties of finding well trained staff," says Dan Pascariu, the chairman of HVB Bank.
He added that, in view of the staffing problems, banks were right to expand by taking over other banks, and not through an organic growth policy based on investing in network expansion.
"Why is it more convenient to buy? Because there''s hardly anyone left to engage in organic growth with," Pascariu explains.
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