“Compared to the country’s general level of development, both economic and in terms of revenues, the Romanian banking network is too large,” financial advisor Bogdan Baltazar said.
Banks expanded their networks by some 3,000 units in the past three years. “The crisis stopped the expansion of networks. Practically speaking, I believe that all banks are reanalyzing the efficiency of their branches opened in haste, in their seeming despair not to miss out on the trend. It has been proven that some of these are not viable, that locations are not good, that they are not what they should be, and in some areas they are too crowded compared to potential demand,” the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of UniCredit Tiriac Bank, Dan Pascariu, indicated.
“The banking system stood out last year in terms of aggressive expansion, by raising the number of bank units, but also through new lenders entering the market. Thus, in terms of bank units, the Romanian market can be considered saturated. Due to the crisis, it is a known fact that the financial sector posted the largest losses, so many of the unprofitable bank units can be closed for this reason,” Valentin Miron, President VMB Partners, said.
“There are too many agencies in Romania, the global trend is using electronic banking, and if the Romanian banking system follows European trends, the unit network will decline dramatically,” Marinel Burduja, First Vice President of Raiffeisen Bank, said.
