Negritoiu: a new Romanian bank could appear on the market
The banking system could get richer with ‘a Romanian bank’or ‘a development bank’according to the INGBank chairman Misu Negritoiu, who says that ‘there are preparing something’and appreciates that it is useless to waste resources in this sense taking into consideration the evolution of the banks after 1990.
‘I don’t think there is a more uninspired situation to waste resources for an institution which, let’s look at several Romanian banks which appeared in the 90’s and now probably they are still there, so it is completely useless’Negritoiu stated at Romania Financial Forum organised by Mediafax at BNR.
Another issue raised by the ING Bank chairman is the worry of some public people, expressed in private circles, that there is a risk with the foreign banks if they withdraw from the Romanian market.
In his turn, the BNR vicegovernonr Bogdan Olteanu drew the attention that the terms should be well defined, what a Romanian bank is.
‘We have to be very careful how we define our terms. What is the meaning of a Romanian bank? Citizenship, nationality of the shareholders? May times, the public perception says yes. I tell you that we have an extremely Romanian bank, UniCredit Tiriac Bank which has only 45% Romanian shareholders, together with Banca Transilvania which has very present Romanian shareholders. Is this a criterion? In the end, they are banks with shares listed on the stock exchange, with negotiable shares, transferable, today they are owned by a citizen with a certain passport, tomorrow by another, we change our perception or the management changes its action according to the way in which certain shares were transferred on the free market?”” Olteanu commented.
He showed that if he refers to the authority which regulates the respective banks, most credit institutions in Romania are Romanian banks from this perspective, they are commercial companies registered in Romania, supervised by the law.
Olteanu mentioned that, in most cases, the banks which work in Romania are European banks and, as the Romanians want to make distinctions among the nations of Europe to disappear, especially as far as they are concerned, it would be better if they did not exist in the case of ‘interested, courageous, open entrepreneurs to come to do business in Romania’.