BRD-SocGen, the second-largest bank on the market, made investments worth about 25 million euros in the first six months of the year, with the bulk of the money going into the expansion of its territorial network.
This significant financial effort resulted in the opening of 115 new branches, which brought the number of branches and agencies operated by BRD to 441 at the end of June, the second-largest network after that of CEC (Romanian Savings Bank) and slightly bigger than that of the BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank).
As the network underwent an aggressive expansion policy, BRD also had to hire personnel that would manage the new branches. Halfway through the year, BRD had 5,723 employees, 1,311 (about a third) more than in June last year. The number of branches grew by 35% since the beginning of the year alone.
The expansion of the bank's network led to an increase in the number of individual clients, to 1.8 million in June, against 1.5 million in the corresponding period of last year. The bank did not provide information on the number of corporate customers.
The aggressive expansion of the network led to an increase in expenditures, which grew by 37% against June, to 379 million RON. Meanwhile, revenues grew by 15%, to 749 million RON. In the financial report, the bank's officials note that the increase in general expenses is a "natural consequence" of the network's expansion. The bank's cost/income ratio - expressed as a ratio between general expenditures and the net banking income - deteriorated against June last year, going up by 8 percentage points, to 50.6%.
Starting last year, BRD has kept its expansion a secret, withholding plans and new openings. Societe Generale, the majority shareholder of the firm, announced information regarding the number of branches that BRD operates as part of its own financial results report.
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