For sale: Royal Bank of Scotland branch in Romania

RBS Romania, the local branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland group and one of the soundest banks in the local system, according to Central Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu, was included on the list of subsidiaries put up for sale by the Brits, who are making efforts to streamline after the massive losses of last year.

RBS Romania is the former ABN Amro Romania, which was taken over in 2007 in an international deal, and which the Brits rebranded locally last summer.
RBS Bank Romania representatives did not provide any comment on the information at hand yesterday.

At the beginning of this week, Governor Mugur Isarescu said RBS was "one of the best, soundest banks in Romania." International media has recently said that the British RBS group would split its assets into two entities as part of a reorganisation plan, a "good bank" and a "bad bank". Retail operations in Eastern Europe should be included in the "bad bank" part.
 
Governor Isarescu said it would be a pity to include the local branch into the bad bank. According to the latest data published by the National Bank of Romania, RBS Bank Romania had 1.8 billion euros in assets in December 2007. In 2007, the bank had posted 6.2 million-euro net profit. Traditionally, the former ABN Amro (which had entered the local market in 1995) had a stronger position on the corporate finance segment.

The bank has been developing retail operations since 2004, but has relied only on mobile officers, while the territorial network has grown slowly to 27 branches at present.

Ziarul Financiar