ING believes it does not need to make an acquisition on the Romanian banking market, with the first strategic option being the continuation of organic growth for which it has sufficient resources, says Michel Tilmant, 56, CEO of the biggest Dutch banking group.
"We have enough energy to continue this growth that started from scratch and that has gone very well. ING's best quality is the entrepreneurial spirit: we started the business in Romania from scratch and turned it into a profitable project that spans several fields. We will continue to boost the number of branches of the bank and add IT features to products, to speed up our growth. Of course, we are always open to assess various acquisition opportunities, but do not have a specific target. Even though we have a very solid financial position as a group, this is not an excuse to spoil it," Tilmant told ZF in an interview.
He says the size of a bank in itself is not an essential criterion for success, and the priority of the group under the current international circumstances is to protect its capital base and liquidity by being disciplined. ING's top man visited the Bucharest branch of the group for the first time on Friday, and attended a meeting with more than 800 employees to whom he presented ING's strategy and business philosophy.
"I told them my visit was an acknowledgement of how important the business in Romania is to us and a signal that the group's board was ready to further back investments on this market." Tilmant, who has been running ING for four years, met with NBR Governor Mugur Isarescu on Friday afternoon, too.
The effects of the international financial crisis are starting to dissipate, liquidity is back on the market and the overall situation is improving, but there may be some small bumps in the coming months just like the aftershocks of an earthquake, says Michel Tilmant.
"The financial market remains vulnerable to new negative surprises, though, yet I hope they will be as small as possible. On the other hand, we might see side effects in form of an economic growth slowdown and inflation increase, which are more reasons for concern." Tilmant believes the European banking market might see consolidation operations only if they come from players that were harder hit by the crisis.
"The potential synergies among existing groups have not developed lately; most players are now concerned about protecting their balance sheets, but with many share prices down, deals fuelled by certain weaknesses may occur. Tilmant does not believe there is a bank that would engage in a hostile takeover. "People are a key asset in a bank and many of them are lost in a hostile takeover, in addition to the too much energy being wasted in a such an operation."
He says that ING in its position as the biggest Dutch financial group is quite strong to continue to develop internationally on its own without the need for a partner.
ING's core business as a bancassurance group is raising cash from clients through various products and channels, from savings accounts to life insurance and pensions, which it then puts back into the economy to get as high a yield from responsibly selected quality investments as possible, Tilmant explains.
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