RoBank, the local branch of Hungarian OTP Group, now appears as OTP Bank Romania SA on its parent bank''s website.
There was no announcement in Bucharest as to the change of name of the bank, which the Hungarian group acquired a year ago. In fact, despite the amount of time that has passed since the takeover, none of the expected bold expansion plans have surfaced as of yet.
RoBank concluded the first quarter of this year with losses of 205,600 euros, according to its periodical financial report filed with the Budapest Stock Exchange, where OTP is listed.
The same document shows that the bank had assets at the time of 195 million euros, representing a market share of less than 1%, and some 68 million euros in loans granted.
No information was made public in Bucharest, however in Budapest transparency is a requirement for OTP as a publicly listed company.
RoBank chairman Tony Fekete talked at the end of last year of the pending change of name and image of the bank in Romania in order to reflect its relationship with the Hungarian banking group. The parent bank''s website shows that RoBank will now be operating as OTP Bank Romania.
The only visible action taken by OTP in the one year since takeover is changing the headquarters of the Romanian bank and increasing its number of employees. At the end of March 2005 OTP Bank Romania had 348 employees, 48 more than in December 2004.
Other than this, the bank has kept a low profile on the market, having launched no new products or opened new branches.
A year ago, OTP''s officials in Budapest did not hesitate to announce an aggressive expansion plan involving 100 million dollars in investments designed to lead to the opening of 100 new branches and a market share of 4-5%.
At the same time, OTP planned to develop an integrated financial group structure in Romania to cover all the financial service segments with product packages and linked distribution systems. The first step after the takeover of RoBank was supposed to be entry on the insurance, leasing and investment fund market. Except for some probing on the insurance market, even involving plans to take over Asirom at some point, none of these goals have been realised as of yet.
razvan.voican@zf.ro
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