La Caixa keeps its domestic presence low, but invests in Erste

After more than two years since it opened its Romanian subsidiary, Spain's La Caixa group is still keeping a low profile on the domestic banking market, having accumulated assets worth only 473m RON (112.6m euros) by late 2009. While it has not invested in opening more offices, La Caixa ended 2009 with a net loss of around 4.2m euros in line with Romanian accounting standards, according to some banking sources, not managing yet to cover its costs. The Romanian subsidiary works with only seven employees, focusing on serving some Spanish companies with Romanian operations. Therefore, in terms of assets, the subsidiary in 2009 ranked 33rd, with a market share of just 0.15%. "We're working hard to speed up the expansion of operations carried out through Warsaw and Bucharest subsidiaries," reads La Caixa's 2009 annual report. Thus, Romanian clients have got access to the group's Internet banking service. La Caixa voiced its interest in a Romanian acquisition as soon as it entered the market, in 2007, to get a foothold on the retail segment, but nothing materialised. The group preferred to make massive investments in Austrian Erste group to gain exposure on the CEE region and implicitly in Romania.