One year after taking over Banca Romaneasca, The National Bank of Greece (NBG), the largest Greek banking group, is looking for other acquisition opportunities on the Romanian market in line with its business plan for 2005-2007, which it presented recently in Athens.
"We shall try to make the best use of our cash surplus, firstly by making some acquisitions, and our highest priority is expansion in Romania and assessment of the opportunities offered by Turkey," said NBG chairman Takis Arapoglou during the presentation.
He said the Greek group would try to buy banks in Romania and Turkey that would afford it a strong presence, solid customer base and large branch network on those markets
Arapoglou welcomed the growth in the bank's operations in Romania last year, explaining that their loans portfolio had expanded by 45% to 200 million euros.
The NBG credits the Romanian market with one of the highest growth potentials of the regions it operates in and estimates that lending for private customers will climb to 37% of GDP in 2007, compared with around 20% in late 2004. Consumer loans are likely to reach 5.5% of GDP.
Last year NBG focused on the restructuring of Banca Romaneasca and continued its network expansion programme by adding three new branches to reach a total of 29.
The Greek banking group's basic scenario for Romania for this year includes organic growth for Banca Romaneasca through rapid network expansion, the establishment of partnership relationships with retail networks and a strengthening of its presence on the market for small and middle-sized firms.
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