Banca Transilvania has ambitious targets for 2007

Banca Transilvania currently has a 15 percent market share on the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment, and is in tight competition with BRD, Raiffeisen and Bancpost. The market targeted by BT includes about 100,000 SMEs with 3-50 employees, net sales below €1 million in Bucharest and below €500,000 in the rest of the country.

‘‘We want to reach the one million client threshold this year, to continue the group’s consolidation process, and to increase our current market share,’‘ Robert Rekkers, General Manager at Banca Transilvania, told Business Standard.

With 6,000 new clients in May 2007 alone, following a media campaign in Bucharest, the lender’s total number of clients in the capital now exceeds 150,000.  The campaign ended with the draw of a prize in lei worth €10,000 for one of its new May clients.

After being considered by foreign banks interested in the domestic financial service market as one of a number of sitting targets with market shares below 2 percent, BT overthrew many of their projects by deciding to expand its network and more aggressively compete with the top four banks.

In the first three months of 2007, Banca Transilvania, a blue chip of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, had revenues worth €9.3 million, a 14 percent increase (in RON) year-on-year, due to dynamic expansion of its credit volume.

In 2006, BT posted €34 million in net income, 21 percent more than 2005, in spite of the fact that the company invested €26 million to expand its network by 126 branches. The lender also hired some 2,500 people in 2007 alone, with the number of employees reaching 5,000 at present.

The bank currently has 370 branches, from 200 at the beginning of 2006, and €2.68 billion in assets, up 11 percent from March 2006.

‘‘We want to reach the one million client threshold this year, to continue the group’s consolidation process, and to increase our current market share'' Robert Rekkers General Manager, Banca Transilvania