The shareholders of the biggest banks on the domestic market will collect 1.6 billion RON (the equivalent of 385 million euros), after the profit across the system last year reached a record high, 1.2 billion euros.
Out of the top ten banks on the market, only four offered to disburse dividends from last year’s profit, while several players will request their shareholders to allow them to add it to the capital.
BCR, BRD, Raiffeisen and, for the first time, Banca Transilvania will grant dividends this year. The dividends of the former three banks will reach record highs.
On the other hand, UniCredit, Volksbank, Alpha Bank and Piraeus have announced they will keep the 2008 profit as reserves, to be included in the capital. CEC Bank might add the entire profit to the capital, too, according to a Government Ordinance (the state is the only shareholder of the bank through the Public Finance Ministry).
All these banks made record profits in 2008, and four of them also gained from the sale of their stakes in insurance companies.
Bancpost, the only big bank to have seen its profit slightly down in 2008, by 6%, will probably choose to include it in the capital, as it did in the previous years.
Whereas shareholders will collect dividends from record high profits this year, prospects for 2009 are gloomy.
"We (the entire banking system i.e.) do not expect to make a profit that will match the level of the previous years. We are going through a time of crisis and lending, the main stream of revenue for banks is going down. Clearly there isn’t that much room left for profits," says Radu Ghetea, the chairman of the Romanian Banking Association and the head of CEC Bank.
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