There were no changes of the top three places among the top five banks, with only Raiffeisen and UniCredit switching places.
BCR kept its leading position by assets with an over 16% market share in the first nine months of the year. It did not post separate data for the bank in its nine-month report, only for the entire group. Its assets are estimated at about RON57 billion to RON58 billion in September, considering the difference between the group assets reported and those of the bank has been RON2.6 billion to RON2.7 billion so far. The BCR group had RON60 billion assets at the end of September, according to its report, down RON1.6 billion on 2014.
BRD-SocGen, the second leading local bank, reached RON47.6 billion assets at the end of September, more than it had last year and its market share stood at over 13%.
BRD-SocGen, however, is now seeing its second position challenged by Banca Transilvania, which gained more than 3% market share with the takeover of Volksbank. The assets of Banca Transilvania rose by about RON4 billion to RON39.4 billion in January-September and its market share went up to almost 11%.
Raiffeisen Bank ended the first nine months with RON30.8 billion assets and a market share of 8.5%, according to Raiffeisen International. UniCredit’s assets stood at RON27.7 billion at the end of June, lower than at the end of December 2014.
The top five banks in the system by assets account for 55% of the market.
Romania’s banking system comprises 40 lenders, but half of them have less than 1% market share.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)