This is because of the many signs of economic rebound expected for the second half, says Misu Negritoiu, the bank’s chief executive officer.
“We continue to gain market share,” said Negritoiu.
“Anyway, we consolidate our profile as a local universal bank with products and services for all types of clients and are ready for a market that should resume growth,” he added.
Negritoiu, who took the CEO position five years ago, said most
of ING’s asset growth comes neither from loans to the government,
nor from financial markets. He explained the bank saw its
operations on the latter segment go down in the second quarter of
the year “because virtually nothing happens on the money
market.”
Under the circumstances, Negritoiu says 2011 seems to be the most
difficult year to him as a manager. “During the crisis we knew very
clearly what to do – reduce exposure and cut costs. Now one does
not know what to do: we’ve prepared for growth but the market is
not growing.”
Negritoiu does not expect a relapse of the economy into recession but believes that, “things are moving slowly and we can expect a relaxation as late as 2012.”
Cost control remains an important item on the banks’ agenda, but not indiscriminately.
Negritoiu said he even gave ING’s employees slight raises this year. He feels wages are starting to increase across the entire economy, even though the raises have yet to offset inflation and are not showing in official statistics. He also sees consumers’ appetite for spending return.
ING’s strategy ambitions remain unchanged: be an acknowledged
local universal bank and make it into the top five by assets.
The Dutch-owned lender has become one of the most aggressive
competitors on the market on the retail segment, where it overshot
the one million-customer mark last year.
ING also wants an increased presence on the small and medium-sized enterprise segment, where it sees a lot of room to grow after other banks left.
As for its corporate business, Negritoiu said the bank is in a good position because it was quick to start cleaning up its portfolio at the onset of the crisis and was aggressive in making provisions so that its risk cost is down, which will lead to an annual profit increase.
ING posted 128 million lei (EUR30 million) gross profit in 2010, up 52% as a result of the provision decline, while assets went up 9% to over RON12 billion.
The bank has been the tenth largest by assets reported to the central bank (BNR) over the last few years. Its market share in 2010 stood at 3.5%, which means ING is now less than 0.5% behind the ninth largest lender, Bancpost. (EUR1=RON4.256)
(English version by Loredana Fratila Cristescu)