“We restructured the business last year and got rid of the non-performing elements. We started growth and have had good results, especially when it comes to Romanian customers. We saw growth of 20% on the corporate segment last year. We will stay in Romania,” Florin Sandor said on ZF Live.
The group arrived in Romania in 2003 and in 2016 posted EUR3 million net profit, stepping into the black after spending 2007-2015 in the red.
“It was rather a different approach, we wanted to be a universal bank in Romania, cover every sector and grow organically, but we were successful neither on the retail nor on the corporate segments.”
Intesa decided to change market strategy in Romania last year and focus on the corporate segment mostly, while keeping a small presence on the retail segment. It has more than 30 branches in Romania at the moment.
Intesa Bank Romania had EUR1 billion in assets in mid-2016 and loans granted stood at EUR860 million, equally split among retail, SME and corporate.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)