The Anglo-Romanian Bank (which is the UK operating subsidiary of Banca Comerciala Romana) recently acquired Banca Franco Romana and absorbed Frankfurt Bukarest Bank (the BCR subsidiary from Germany) reaching an asset value of 350 mil euro, and hence increasing the overall value of the mother company. BCR is the last of the two state-owned banks that are open for sale and which in June had 5 bn. euros in assets and net profit of about 89 mil.

The other one owned by the state is CEC, valued at about 300-400 mil. euros and scheduled to be sold by the end of 2005. At the end of September CEC had assets of 1.2 bn, a gross profit of about 18 mill and a market share of about 6%. The main attraction is of course its largest branch network countrywide. (1424 outlets). Three Austrian banks are among the ones manifesting interest in CEC: Erste, Raiffeisen and BA/CA.  

BCR is the bank with the biggest market share (30%), followed by BRD (13%), Raiffeisen (8%) and CEC (6%). The followers which are fighting at around the 4% level are BancPost, ABN Amro, ING, HVB, AlphaBank or Tiriac Bank. There are 39 banks in total - 7 Romanian-owned, 8 which are branches of foreign banks and 22 with majority foreign capital. (source)

The banks are mainly located in the major cities (13 cities concentrate about 40% of the branches) and this year the estimated industry growth rate is higher than 10%. Organic growth both on scale and on scope sounds as the most likely strategy - lending being the main engine and agresively looking for opening new branches countrywide. Perhaps they will also consider alternative distribution channels (i.e. internet) but this is subject to the investments in the technology infrastructure. I think Romania is one of the most attractive markets from Central Eastern Europe and foreign players interested in making an entrance are likely to acquire a local bank.