BNR will be represented in Brussels by Deputy Governor Cristian Popa, the Head of the Stability Division, Ion Dragulin, and the Director within the Surveillance Division Adrian Cosmescu. “Tomorrow’s [Ed.n.- today] meeting has been scheduled a long time ago. Two weeks ago, in Athens, we talked with the seven Greek-capital banks present on the local market, including the small ones, about their commitment to support the business in Romania,” a central bank source said.
BNR officials denied the information printed in the media earlier this week saying that Greek and Austrian lenders withdrew part of the money allocated to their Romanian subsidiaries, in spite of the “gentlemen’s agreement” between the bankers and the IMF at the end of March. Greek and Austrian banks took €1.64 billion and €652 million, respectively out of the country in September 2008-March 2009. “These withdrawals took place before the signing of the IMF agreement,” said BNR officials.
The list of lenders which participated in the Vienna meeting, where the “gentlemen’s agreement” was signed, includes Erste Bank (owner of Banca Comerciala Romana), Raiffeisen International, Eurobank EFG (which controls Bancpost), National Bank of Greece (that operates through Banca Romaneasca on the local market), UniCredit, Societe Generale (which controls BRD), Alpha Bank, Volksbank, and Piraeus Bank. Several banks need to increase their capital by several hundreds of millions of euro, to raise their solvency degree above 10 percent.
