Raiffeisen Bank, the third-largest bank on the market, last year made 52.9 million euros in net profit, an increase of 1.1% compared with 2005. The bulk of the profit came in the second half of 2006, after the reorganisation of the bank's operations.
Gross profit registered a significant increase of 22.2%, reaching 61.1 million euros. Last year was the first year when Raiffeisen paid profit tax, having previously been exempt due to the losses inherited from the former Banca Agricola.
More than 65% of the bank's profit was derived in the second half of the year, after the organisation of geographic structures was replaced with business lines, with emphasis on the development of a specialised sales force.
"The changes we implemented at the beginning of the year affected the first half of our profit. However, the second half of profit we derived confirmed that the specialisation of the network on corporate and retail segments had made a direct positive impact on the bank's results," stated Steven van Groningen, the chairman and CEO of Raiffeisen Bank.
He noted the growth of the assets by one billion euros in each of the last four years, to almost 4.1 billion euros in 2006, excluding "the loans recorded from accounting abroad." According to the data published by the parent bank in Vienna, the net export of loans of Raiffeisen Bank Romania stood at around 500 million euros due to the limit set by the NBR for the foreign currency lending, which was lifted on January 1, 2007. However, the local banks could continue to transfer large loans to the balance sheets of their respective parent banks in order to offer competitive prices, despite the NBR refusing to cut the minimal mandatory reserves.
For the first time last year, the number of Raiffeisen branches exceeded 225 (branches which were inherited from Banca Agricola in 2001) and reached 265. Most of the new offices were opened in the second half of last year, after a period of restructuring. The size of the Raiffeisen network is still much smaller than that of the BRD (over 600 branches) and BCR (481), resulting in plans to speed up the expansion rate by around 100 new offices every year.
Despite expansion, the bank has managed to continue to cut the share of costs in total revenues, from 76.7% in 2005 to 68% in 2006. "We will not stop here," added van Groningen.
The reduction was made possible amid a slight adjustment in the number of employees, to a figure of 4,770, with the opening of new offices being helped by the fact that some employees became available due to the centralisation of certain operations like the lending and processing of certain transactions. However, Raiffeisen's return on equity before tax still fell from 24.6% in 2005 to 20.1% in 2006.
The consolidation of the sales force by the introduction of a salary system based on direct performance has allowed an increase in the cross sales of products and services, which in turn generated a 33% increase in the net revenues from commissions. Revenues from interests rose by 21.5%, while operating expenses increased by 16.3%.
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