ING Bank Romania made 106 million RON (almost 29 million euros) gross profit in 2008, an increase of 66% on the previous year, while its net revenue reached a record-high of about 150 million euros.
"This is the all-time best result of ING Romania, mostly because of the dynamic retail operations. We have reached the profile of a consolidated financial institution with a significant local component and a complete product portfolio. From now on, on solid ground, the bank’s business can only grow," stated Misu Negritoiu, chief executive of ING Bank Romania.
The total balance of the credits granted by the bank went up by 60% last year, reaching 7.45 billion RON (about 1.8 billion euros), while deposits attracted increased by 25% to 7.98 billion RON (2 billion euros).
"Our liquidity is enviable in the current market conditions, as our loan/deposit ratio stands at 93%," Negritoiu says. The ING official added the bank had permanent access to credit lines in Amsterdam from the parent-bank. "We have no liquidity problem. When I had spoken about this, I meant the overall market, not ING."
Assets exceeded 11 billion RON (2.78 billion euros), and were 36% higher than at the end of 2007.
"Having large assets is not necessarily an achievement, and ING Bank has more substance than the level of assets shows. He have an 8 to 10% share of the corporate banking market," Negritoiu says, specifying that the significant increase in the volume of loans was mainly because of the retail division that consolidated after three years of extensive investments in the network, products and in attracting clients.
As for the quality of the loan portfolio, ING’s boss says that no losses from loans were registered in 2008. "This is why we continued to make provisions just in case. We have no non-performing loans on the corporate segment, just some lines of financing we are monitoring, while non-performing loans on the retail segment account for less than 1%."
The banker says that in case a corporate client experiences problems, ING checks to see if they are temporary or medium or long-term.
"We can discuss solutions to overcome the situation for short-term problems; however, if there are long-term problems, then I’m afraid there is nothing we can do. We are not for automatically extending loan facilities." As for retail loans, the bank has a credit-restructuring programme available on a case-by-case basis.
Negritoiu says that most revenues in 2008 came from basic services and products – payments and cash management, financial markets and treasury, lending.
"We did not have excessive revenues from trading operations, which are often associated with speculations, but from introducing of new products. We used the much hated derivatives to protect clients from the volatility of the market."
The number of branches reached 215 at the end of 2008, 180 of which are franchised retail offices. Albert Roggemans, head of the retail division, says that five more such offices have been opened since the beginning of the year, but the network will only see a marginal growth in 2009. "We are not closing down offices," the ING official said.
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