2002 was the first year when the banks started showing how fiercely they are competing against each other. An important stake was undoubtedly the market share according to the assets held. This is the actually the financial index used to devise the main ranking of the Romanian banking system so far, even though there may be other relevant indices, such as the return on equity or the return on assets, the cash flow or the solvency index.
If judging last year by looking at the assets, then there were not many changes in the ranking in 2002. One thing should be noted though. Banc Post went down two places, outrun by Raiffeisen Bank and HVB Bank Romania. And there is also the strong progress of HVB and Citibank Romania.
The assets in the Romanian banking system amount to about 11 billion euros. 2002 was the first year when this index registered a more visible increase. A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey shows the Romanian banking assets could come to total nearly 18bn euros by the end of 2007.
Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR) remains the top bank in Romania in terms of assets (worth more than 3,500 million euros) by far, followed by Banca Romana pentru Dezvoltare (Romanian Development Bank - BRD) - Groupe Societe Generale, the assets of which are worth about half those of BCR. If calculated in euros, BRD's assets fell from the 1,936.8 million euros at the end of 2001 to 1,832.8 million euros in 2002. BRD officials, however, say an increase in assets is not one of the bank's priorities.
Leaving Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni (Romanian Savings Bank -CEC) out of the top 10, as it operated under the banking law for less than six months last year and logged 1,033 million euro in assets at the end of 2002, the number three bank is Dutch ABN Amro Bank Romania. This bank has managed to increase assets from 677 million euros to 692 million euros.
Dutch-held ING Bank Romania is number four, as its assets amounted to 673.4 million euros at the end of last year, about the same as in the previous year according to its officials in Bucharest.
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