As BCR is one of the best-known brands in Romania, only the letter S with a dot above has been added to the new logo, specific to saving's banks and subsidiaries of Erste Bank. 

The operation to change all BCR logos to include visual identity elements of Erste will end next March.
"Branding operations will last six months.  At present only 15 units have the new identity," BCR's President, Nicolae Danila, told Business Standard. The logo change alone is a €3 mln financial effort, he added.

After rebranding, the next step for BCR’s majority shareholder, Erste Bank, could be the bank’s listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB). Erste officials are considering such a move later this year or in Q1 2008.
“We hope to have Erste Bank listed in Bucharest this year, but the proceedings are complex,” Erste Bank President, Andreas Treichl, told a press conference yesterday.

Treichl forecasts a 40 percent year-on-year increase in profits in 2007, excluding restructuring expenses, due to the development of the local banking environment. “We are going to reach our target for this year,” he said. For 2007, the bank’s market share in terms of assets is likely to be 26.5 percent, 0.5 percent higher year-on-year. 

BCR is undergoing a complex integration and development program (IDP), including 40 projects. The bank aims to enlarge its network to 700 units by 2009, from a current 520. It also plans to raise the number of retail clients to over 4 mln, from a present 3.3 mln.  The bank has 400,000 corporate clients. 

Several new services are to be made available to clients, including retail real estate centers, a new web portal, current account packages, and a new BCR Contact Center. 

BCR, of which Erste Bank owns 69.11 percent, following a transaction with the Romanian state back in December, 2005, has assets in excess of €16 billion. Its main competitors are BRD Groupe Société Générale, Banca Transilvania and Raiffeisen Bank. 

Erste Bank has 16 million clients in Central and Eastern Europe and, by mid-2007 had assets worth €168 bln and net profits worth €66 mln.