Raiffeisen sold 33m euros' worth of loans to two special vehicles in 2010

Raiffeisen, which last year regained its third position among top banks in terms of assets, in 2010 continued to sell retail and corporate loans from its balance sheet, both to secure a cash flow, and for portfolio optimisation, transferring to two Dutch vehicles receivables worth over 33m euros.

The bank thus took out of its portfolio retail loans equivalent with 12.5m euros and corporate loans worth about 20.8m euros, with the sums being less than half the volumes sold in 2009.

Such operations carried out under various forms by other banks as well have been distorting the statistical data on the trend of private lending published by the central bank for several years.

Despite outsourcing of loans, Raiffeisen's portfolio last year rose by 20% on the retail segment and by 16% on the corporate one, totalling 12.15m lei.

However, the volume of loans classified as "doubtful" and "loss" in line with Romanian accounting standards almost doubled, nearing two billion lei (467m euros).