Over a quarter of public debt is owed to 22 banks

29 iul 2010 Autor: Ciprian Botea

The Romanian state had an 11.5 billion-euro debt to 22 European banks at the end of March, most of which from Austria, France, Greece, and Italy, accounting for 28.5% of the public debt registered in the statistics of the Finance Ministry at the same date.
French group Société Générale - majority shareholder of BRD, the second-largest bank on the Romanian market in terms of assets - had the biggest exposure to Romanian T-bills, of over 3 billion euros. The loans granted by the French bank to the state accounted for 7.5% of the overall 40.3 billion-euro public debt.
Austrian-held Erste Group, which controls the biggest bank on the Romanian market - BCR, ranks second among banks that financed Romania, with an almost 2.49 billion-euro exposure to Romanian T-bills, i.e. 6.2% of the overall public debt.
Austrian banks are in fact the biggest lenders to the Romanian state, with exposures to Romanian T-bills of Erste and Raiffeisen International accounting for almost one tenth of the overall public debt.