The spectacular leap in profit registered by the bank, which is among the top ten players in the banking system, comes from the sale of its 25 percent stake in the Asiban insurance company, for €62 mln.
The bank’s loan portfolio, which includes clients such as small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), agricultural sector players, and retail, has nearly doubled last year, to RON 8.1 bln (€2.03 bln).
CEC Bank is one of the few banks in the Romanian system which has a favorable loan/deposit ratio, of 70 percent, considering some lenders granted four times more loans than attracted deposits.
Although most banks have sharply cut the value of loans, especially in last year’s final quarter, CEC continued to grant loans at the same pace as in the entire 2008.
