“There are no serious plans to introduce a special bank levy, as the influential central bank opposes such a move,” the bank said in its Banking Sector Convergence 2.0 report.
Romania’s banking sector returned to profit in the first half of the year, after the negative results seen in 2010. More pessimistic scenarios were avoided in 2009 and 2010, due to substantial reserves of liquidity and capital, the Raiffeisen analysts said.
A high number of banks from the euro area periphery operate in Romania, and together they control 16% of assets.
“However, recent banking statistics show that these banks have higher capital ratios than the country average and their liquidity position remains solid, as there are no indications of significant bank-specific deposit outflows,” the report reads.
Poor local demand continued to impact local currency lending, especially for consumer loans, which remained on a downward trend, according to the report.
“On the back of sluggish loan growth, non-performing loans continued to rise (currently 13.4%), but at a slower pace than in 2010. The loan-to-deposit ratio remains over the 100% level and even increased slightly in the first half of 2011 due to the very sluggish growth in deposits,” the report notes.
At the end of June, the Raiffeisen group had over 6,000 employees and 544 branches in Romania, Serving some 1.939 million clients, 100,000 SMEs and over 6,800 medium and large companies.
In the first half of the year, the bank registered a net profit of EUR40 million in Romania, down 23% from EUR52 million in the same interval of 2010, following an increase in expenditure and the reduction of revenue from commissions, financial investment and derivatives.
The assets held by Raiffeisen Bank International in Romania declined in the first half to EUR6.172 billion, from EUR6.227 billion in the beginning of the year.