Banca Transilvania (BT), the fifth largest lending institution on the market, has expanded its headquarters in Cluj-Napoca by refitting and refurbishing a second building it owns in the city centre.
Total investments, which bank officials estimated to be at around 7 million euros, were used to redesign the interior and exterior structure of the building and to modernise the available space.
The BT Asigurari, BT Assist, BT Leasing and BT Direct companies were all relocated to the new building, which is situated a few hundred metres from the former headquarters of Banca Transilvania.
The old headquarters will now be exclusively used for banking services.
BT has kept its central headquarters in Cluj-Napoca despite an aggressive level of expansion in the last two years. It also left Raiffeisen Bank behind in terms of territorial network size.
Banca Transilvania has also opened its first banking coffee shop in Cluj, the fourth to be opened nationally by the bank. BT already has bank caf?s located in Bucharest, Constanta and Timisoara. Investments in the BT Caf? amounted around 200,000 euros, with the caf? offering the bank's customers the possibility of viewing exchange rates and stock quotes, whilst also providing wireless connection facilities, local and national newspapers, up to date TV news and other financial information.
"The BT Caf? project has proven extremely successful in Romania, with over 200,000 customers already having used our services in the existing locations," stated Robert Rekkers, BT manager.
The concept has been replicated by BCR, which has three banking coffee shops, two in Bucharest and one in Sibiu, as well as by BRD, Volksbank and ING, which have each opened a coffee shop in the capital city.
In 2005, BT bought a 5,100 square metre office building from RomTelecom.
The building, which is located in the financial centre of Cluj-Napoca, was taken over in the wake of a deal estimated to be around 4.4 million euros excluding VAT.
"The expansion of Banca Transilvania in the centre of Cluj indicates the healthy growth of the BT financial group.
"For us, this means the acknowledgement of the importance of Cluj city, where, 13 years ago, Banca Transilvania was born. We hope to acquire more space in this area, further confirming our dynamic presence in Cluj-Napoca," stated Robert Rekkers.
In 2006, BT reported a preliminary net income worth 120.2 million RON (35.3 million euros), up 20% year on year.
The bank's assets at the end of last year stood at 2.4 billion euros, with BT ranked fifth in the Romanian banking system holding a 4.7% market share.
BT is the last independent lending institution that could be targeted for acquisition by an investor, who intends to rapidly gain a significant position on the market.
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