Eskiehir Osmangazi niversitesi

Romanian Banking Sector

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Table of Contents
Abstract 3

Introduction3

Approach of the outstanding moments in the evolution of the Romanian banking system before
1990. 3

An approach of the outstanding moments in the evolution of the Romanian banking system
after 1990. 5

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROMANIAN BANKING SYSTEM IN THE CONTEXT OF INTEGRATION IN THE

EUROPEAN UNION 6

Changes in the structure and regulation of the banking system in Romania 7

Relations between Turkey and Romania

.9

Romanian Internet Banking

Market
.10

Dynamics and structural evolutions of the Romanian banking system due to the financial
globalization.11

Corporate governance and bank performance in the Romanian banking sector

12

Financial crisis, regulation and competition: the Romanian banking

experience.12

Romanian Banking
Association
.12

Vission
..13

Mission
.13

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References
14

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Abstract . . .
One of the national systems most often marked by various internal and
international macroeconomic evolutions over time was the banking system. In this
paper I intend to analyze the main developments of the banking system in the
outstanding moments in its history, starting with a brief characterization of the
banking system before 1990, moving then towards an analysis of the
developments recorded in the watershed years (1992, 1998, 2007) and getting to
the current situation using several representative indicators. This analysis allows
me to place in historical and current coordinates, the subject of a more extensive
research aimed at highlighting the impact that Basel III will have on Romanian
commercial banks.

Introduction
This work is part of a broader research approach that aims to end an impact study
regarding the implementation of Basel III Agreement in the Romanian commercial
banks; a study that cannot be achieved without a dynamic placement of the
Romanian banking system in the current coordinates, an aspect that I am following
through this work. The Romanian banking system has had to face many challenges
throughout history, challenges that have taken into account both the national and
international financial-economic context. In this paper I propose to realize an
analysis of the turning points in the evolution of the Romanian banking system,
starting from a short presentation of the outstanding moments before 1990 and
then continuing with an overview of some indicators which I consider relevant in
the evolutionary analysis of the banking system in 4 years that I consider
outstanding, respectively, 1992, 1998, 2007 and 2012.
Approach of the outstanding moments in the evolution of the
Romanian banking system before 1990.
The banking activity, both nationally and internationally, has appeared as a double
necessity on the part of those who made savings and storage their wealth, and on
the other side on those who lacked wealth looking only to satisfying their needs.
Regarding the Romanian banking activity, its emergence is related to the activity
of the money-changers who began buying and selling currencies in order to
achieve gains (Dardac, N, Vascu, T., ASE Digital Library). As the trade, the
economic relations were developing, the money-changers have developed lending
activities, the lending principle being one which has been preserved until today,
and that was that money could be borrowed only in exchange for an interest at the
time called usury (the money-changers turning to moneylenders). However, what
determined for a banking system to be created, that required a general framework
for banks to operate, was the level at which usury reached, namely from 12% -24%
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at the beginning of lending activities to much higher levels, with development of

the usurious activities. The level of the interest rates has led to the
impoverishment of those seeking such loans, from peasants to landowners, and
even treasure clergy. The interest could be even paid in nature, in work or in
products by the customers from rural areas, for these recording the highest level,
up to 300%. In a more difficult situation were the peasants who were allowed to
have only one creditor in the person of their master on whose land they had their
household. (Pintea, A., Ruscanu, G., 1995). The beginning of the nineteenth
century was marked by a series of banking projects in major regions of Romania,
projects that drafted banking activity as being mainly an activity of depositing
values, discounting (purchasing bills before maturity) and crediting. The first
project that was done was the creation of the first credit institution in 1864,
respectively the Savings and Records House that had an activity geared towards
attracting financial resources from the public and placing them in government
securities. The following years were characterized by the opening of more banks
with local capital, namely: the Romanian Bank (1865); Albina Bank (1872), The
Land, Rural and Urban Loan (1873-1875), the Marmorosch Blank (1874). A
highlight moment of the Romanian banking system evolution was on July 1, 1880,
when based on a project initiated by the Finance Minister at that time, IC Brtianu,
the National Bank of Romania began its work with a majority private capital. The
following period was characterized mainly by a development of the Romanian
banking system, as evidenced by the large number of bank institutions that have
been opened. Thus, if in 1900, eight banks were operating in Romania, their
number reached 237 in 1916, 1102 in 1930, respectively 1204 units in 1934. In the
structure of the banking system, at that time, were working both large commercial
banks (Agricultural Bank, Bank of Commerce of Craiova, Romania Discount Bank,
Romanian Bank, Romanian General Bank, Bank of Romanian Credit, Romanian
Commercial Bank) and small credit institutions for small rural and urban
households, known as the People's Bank, cooperatives or credit unions, which
aimed at granting loans to those with limited financial possibilities. In the year
1915, the Romanian banks were owned by banks with Romanian capital in
proportion of 38.05% and by banks with foreign capital in proportion of 61.95%.
Although the presence of a majority foreign capital in the banking system was
beneficial for Romania, later, the externally funded banks helped to drain profits
from the industrial and commercial enterprises credited by them or to which these
banks held shares. (Pintea, A., Ruscanu, G., 1995). The First World War period was
characterized primarily by an increase in the social capital of the Romanian banks,
in order to support the increased needs of the country. Another turning point in the
structure of the Romanian banking system was marked by the economic crisis of
1929-1933. This event has mainly affected the small banks and those that
functioned in the countryside because the falling prices of agricultural products
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and reduced harvest of 1928 dramatically affected the farmers 'ability to repay
loans, thus limiting the banks' ability to cope with cash withdrawals from
depositors. Thus, some of the banks went bankrupt, which caused a reduction in
the number of commercial banks by 20.4%. The Romanian economy then
experienced a period of economic growth that was also felt in the banking system,
which in the period 1934-1941 witnessed a significant development, reflected also
by an increase in the capital of banking institutions. This period is also relevant in
terms of banking law given the fact that on May 8, 1934, Law no. 70 for the
organization and regulation of bank trading was adopted (www.cdep.ro). The bank,
according to this law, was defined as being "any commercial enterprise whose
main objective is to perform any kind of operations on the amounts of money in
cash on credit, on credits, on the effects of trading, on the various negotiable
securities and also on any other operations related to them." Another feature of
this period was the high concentration of the Romanian capital. Thus, in the year
1941, 52% of the total balance sheet assets were held by 1.8% of the existing
banks (Dardac, N., Barbu, T., 2005). The period of the Second World War was
characterized mainly by the National Bank of Romania trying to conduct a healthy
banking activity, while making great efforts to support both the needs of the
economy and to cover up the country's war expenses. In the immediate period of
the Second World War, namely 1944-1946, the Romanian banking system
consisted of the National Bank of Romania and 232 private active banks. This
system went through a period of boosting the necessary credits for reviving the
key economic sectors that were devastated during the war. The year 1947,
however, led to a fundamental change in the Romanian banking system, with the
nationalization of the National Bank of Romania, renamed the People's Republic
Romanian Bank, from that time the Romanian state became the sole shareholder,
the sole decider of the way of conducting the activity of this institution. Thus, the
period 1947 - 1989 was characterized by an annihilation of the competition in the
banking sector, competition that has been eliminated completely once with the
nationalization of all banks that have remained in the system (in 1948 only the
National Bank of Romania, the Bank of Credit Investment, Home Savings Bank
were functioning, to which were added in 1968 the Romanian Bank for Foreign
Trade and the Bank for Agriculture and Industry). Thus, during this period the
Romanian banking system consisted of: - The National Bank of Romania, which
aimed to mobilize the resources in the economy and direct them towards the
priority actions of the state; - Specialized banks, which aimed to achieve the state
policy in the financialbanking field as well as providing banking services in the
following priority sectors for the economy: agriculture, foreign trade and
investment. Analyzing the key events in the evolution of the banking system until
1990, we can see that this system has undergone a continuous process of
development, in some periods, and adaptation to adverse economic conditions in
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other periods. . Thus, the banking activity was conducted at the beginning by
money-changers, and then, to be carried out via more than 1,000 banks and later
becoming an activity carried on only by a few bank institutions. These events have
left their mark on what is today's banking system, through the lessons learned
from the good things or from the mistakes that were made in the Romanian
banking system over time.
An approach of the outstanding moments in the evolution of
the Romanian banking system after 1990.
The transformations of the Romanian banking system continued after 1990, during
which he had to deal with two major challenges, namely, the transition to a market
economy and the accession to the European Union. In this context, I will try to
show how the Romanian banking system looked like in four years that I consider
relevant for the evolution after 1990, namely the year 1992 (to see how the
banking system virtually looked immediately after suspending the operation of a
centralized banking system respectively immediately after entering into force Law
no 33/1991 on banking activity) and then 1998 (the year when the banking system
starts to be regulated modernly through the banking Law no. 58/1998), the year
2007 (the year of accession to the European Union and the predecessor year of the
international financial crisis) and finally presenting the current period 2012-2013 to
see how the banking system looks today, after having faced a multitude of internal
and international conjuncture challenges. The indicators over which I will stop in
the analysis are the number of banks by social capital origin, the structure of bank
assets by origin of capital, the share of overdue loans in total assets, the solvency
ratio and the share of nongovernmental loans from GDP. I chose these indicators
because I consider them the most important when you want to get an overview of
how the Romanian banking system has evolved in the analyzed period. I will start
the analysis from the number of banking institutions in the chosen period, namely
the share of the assets according to the origin of capital in the same period (table
no. 1)

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ROMANIAN BANKING SYSTEM IN THE

CONTEXT OF INTEGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
The Romanian banking systems accession to the European Union on January 1st, 2007,
was a significant moment in the banking history and it emphasized the significant
progress in the legal, structural and operational fields that reduced the gaps between
Romania and the EU Member States. The changes made in the Romanian banking
system may be highlighted using a composite index calculated by the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the assessment of bank reforms and of
interest rate relaxation. The following are taken into consideration when determining this
index: the quality of regulation and monitoring activities, the type of property and the
access of private sector to funding. The values of this index range between 1 and 4+
with the following meaning: 1 represents low progress of the transitional process and 4+
reflects full compliance with the standards and performances of developed economies.
This transition of the Romanian banking system emphasized by the EBRD index is
facilitated by the data presented in table 1. With regard to the Romanian banking
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system, the values of the transition index calculated by BERD show that there is still
room for improvements, despite the progress of reforms. The low score of Romania (3.3%
in 2008 compared to 3.67% of Bulgaria and Poland) is due to its slower reforms.

Changes in the structure and regulation of the banking system in

Romania
Subsequent to the restructuring and privatization process, the alignment of the
Romanian bank laws to the European requirements and the extension of banking
products and services portfolio, the Romanian banking system has significantly
strengthened over the last years being now the most important component of the
financial system (see figures in table 2).

According to the data presented in table 2 we can notice that the Romanian
financial system is mainly grounded on the banking sector, where credit
institutions play an essential role in financing the real economy. Such characteristic

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of the local financial system is also found in the financial systems of Central and
East European countries. So far, the banking system is mainly oriented towards
traditional banks, whose main activity consists in the attraction of bank deposits
and the award of credits. This is reflected by the structure of assets and liabilities.
For example, at the end of 2008, loans represented 85% of total assets of financial
monetary institutions, and the deposits from customers represented 75.6% of total
liabilities. Although non-banking financial intermediaries have recorded a positive
trend, they represent a small percentage of the total assets of the financial system.
Thus, considering the banking system as the most significant financial agent, we
may say that its strength and stability are essential to support the economic
growth. Romanias accession to EU raised the interest of foreign financial
institutions in the domestic banking market, materialized in the establishment of
new entities, by bank mergers and purchases of middle sized and small banks. The
presence of foreign investors raised the competition level in banking industry by
offering new banking products and direct provision of services in Romania leading
to changes in the structure of domestic banking system. Thus, in 2007 the
Millennium Bank, member of the Portuguese Millennium group, was established;
three branches of foreign banks were opened (Fortis Bank S.A/NV Bruxelles,
Bucharest Branch of Fortis Bank, the Romanian Branch of LA CAIXA Bank and
Finicredito Branch of the Portuguese group Finibanco); HVB iriac Commercial Bank
merged Unicredit Romania, and this newly established entity presently operates
under the name of Unicredit iriac Bank S.A; the Romanian Branch of Blom Bank
Egypt transferred its operations to the Romanian Branch of Blom Bank France S.A
Paris; by the end of March 2008, in the context of the service market relaxation
generated by Romanias accession to EU, BNR received 134 notifications from the
monitoring authorities in the countries of origin of foreign financial institutions
willing to provide direct services in Romania (123 credit institutions, 3 non-banking
financial institutions and 5 electronic payment providers). Table 3 presents the
structural changes in the Romanian banking system, following the licensing of new
credit institutions, the merger of certain existing banks, the variety of products and
services provided by credit institutions, and the raise of their assets. Presently, the
banking system includes 43 credit institutions, of which 10 are branches of foreign
banks, mainly privately owned, as well as a significant weight of foreign private
capital, with positive effects materialized in an improved corporate management of
the banking industry, an increased efficiency of risk management and an improved
stability of banks. In the context of Romanias accession to EU and the
implementation of the Community law in the field of financial services, there has
been recorded an increased number of branches of EU credit institutions on the
domestic banking market. The professional literature addressing foreign banks
shows that they may contribute to the establishment of a solid and efficient
financial system. Both research studies and practice show that the entry of foreign
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banks by mergers and purchases has positive effects on the increased efficiency of

the banking industry.

The structural changes in the Romanian banking system is also emphasized in the
view of the significant increase in the number of bank units, reflecting the banks
intention to cover as many market sectors and to provide quality products and
services, in order to attract and increase consumer loyalty. For example, in 2007,
the number of local bank units increased by 41.83% compared to 2006. For
comparison, in Bulgaria the increase was of only 4.63% (see table 4). Another
feature of the Romanian banking system is the accelerated strengthening process,
leading to an increased bank market concentration, measured by Herfindahl-
Hirschmann index and the market share of the 5 leading credit institutions.
Relations between Turkey and Romania
Turkey and Romania have strong political, economic, cultural relations and
humanitarian bonds based on deep-rooted historical ties. Turkey and Romania
maintain their close relations through high-level dialogue and friendship.
Depending on the mutual commitment to enhance bilateral relations in every field,
the level of our relations were raised to strategic partnership with the signing of
Strategic Partnership Declaration in December 2011. The Action Plan on the
implementation of the said document was signed in March 2013. The exchange of
high level visits between Turkey and Romania reflects the close political dialogue
and friendly relations. H.E. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoan, President of the Republic of
Turkey, paid an official visit to Romania in March 2015. H.E. Mr. Mevlt avuolu,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, also visited Romania in June
2015. Turkish Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator, H.E. Mr. Volkan Bozkr
paid a visit to Romania in February 2016. Article 6 of the Romanian Constitution
guarantees national minorities the right to the preservation, development and
expression of their ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity including
education in the mother tongue. More than 70.000 Turks and Tatar Turks, along
with other 16 minority groups in Romania, enjoy their constitutional rights through
minority organizations they established. Each minority organization has political
party status and minority groups are represented in the parliament in proportion to

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their population. Turks and Tatar Turks have one seat each in the Parliament.

Turkey and Romania are each others largest trading partners in the Balkans.
In 2015, Turkeys exports to Romania were 2,8 billion USD and its imports from
Romania amounted to 2,6 billion USD. Bilateral trade volume between the two
countries has reached to 5,4 billion USD. This figure represents a 15 % annual
decline in bilateral trade as compared to 2014. Turkey is among the largest
investors in Romania with its current value of investment exceeding 6 billion USD
including those coming from third countries. Currently, around 7.000 Turkish
companies are actively operating in Romania. Two Turkish banks, Credit Europe and
Garanti Bank Romania, are also operating in Romania. Romania continues to offer
significant opportunities for both Turkish exports and investments. In Romania, the
construction projects which have been completed by Turkish contractors so far
amount to 6,2 billion USD. 441.000 Romanian tourists visited Turkey in 2015.

Romanian Internet Banking Market

The Internet banking today is not something new anymore; all the banks in the
Romanian market (and not only) are offering different forms of Internet banking which is
ultimately a service in the cloud. In terms of cloud computing, Internet banking
represents SaaS for the users, an application which uses Internet for making payments,
viewing information, making deposits and so on. In this paper we briefly analyse the
Romanian Internet banking market and compare some of the most popular Internet
banking platforms. We will also draw some conclusions about this market in the context
of the new Cloud computing delivery models. As a very concise definition, Internet
banking allows customers to make payments over the Internet, by logging to a secure
website. This paper aims to analyse the current status of the Romanian Internet (or
Electronic) Banking market, evaluate a number of platforms and emphasize the need of

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Cloud-based mobile banking solutions based on some identified benefits.According to

dictionary.com (Dictionary.com, 2013), electronic banking is defined as conducting
banking transactions through computerized systems, as electronic funds transfer by
automated-teller machines, intended to speed operations, reduce costs, etc. According
to Cambridge Dictionaries Online (Dictionary.cambridge.org, 2013), electronic banking
represents the use of the Internet to organize, examine, and make changes to your bank
accounts and investments, etc. electronically, or the use of the Internet by banks to
operate accounts and services. From the same Cambridge Dictionary we may find out
that Internet banking (IB) is the system that allows you to put in or take out money from
a bank account by using the Internet.As we can observe from the two definitions of
electronic banking above there is a slight difference in the understanding of the term,
the more recent definition from Cambridge is defining the current understanding of the
electronic service. However, we are not getting into the deep economic details with
these services; the main purpose of this paper is to set the correct understanding of the
term.Eurostat states that in Romania, in 2012 only 3% of the Internet users were using
Internet Banking. The fact that only 46% from the total population questioned (Source:
National Statistical Institute - Romania via Eurostat) had used the Internet in the last
three months denotes a serious issue with the electronic banking services. Also, the
decrease from 4% in 2011 to 3% in 2012, suggest that our current market is not
attractive for consumers. The graph below shows that the general trend is an increase in
electronic banking usage. We are not going to get into deeper detail of this data. The
statistical data has the purpose to give an introductory overview of the Romanian
market.

Dynamics and structural evolutions of the Romanian banking

system due to the financial globalization
The ways by which the banking sector management can ensure the stability of banks,
not only as entities but them as the entire banking system, while competition on the
given market has become stiffer due to the globalization of economy, was brought about
by: the awareness that globalization currently stands for the dominant phenomenon of
world economy, the stiffer competition, the increase in risk factors and the instability in
which economic operators carry out their activity. The above mentioned aspects
determined the banking systems to reposition themselves, so as to meet the needs of a
forever-changing economic environment, according to the standards imposed by
domestic and international regulating boards.
In recent years, a growing number of economists are using the concept of globalization
for characterizing the status of the world economy. Later on, the globalization
phenomenon, caused by the amplification of the international trade, was enhanced by
the combination of information technology and telecommunications. Nowadays,
globalization is manifested in all areas of life. In the general process of globalization,
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which involves the international movement of ideas and information, a special position
lies in, by its consequences, to the economic globalization. It requires close cooperation
between countries, between their economies, ie increasing flows of capital, goods and
services, know-how and manpower.
Aggregate monetary balance : The evolutions of aggregate balance level of loaning
institutions for the period 2007- June 2014 were determined by the features of the
banking activity throughout this period, that mostly overlaps the economic downturn our
country went through. In practice, throughout this period we witnessed an impairment of
banking activity subsequent to the diminishing of exposures, a reduction in external
funding from parent banks, which underwent difficulties on the country of origin markets,
simultaneously meeting the capital supplementing demands.The conclusions derived
from the analysis of the aggregate monetary balance evolution of other monetary
financial institutions (loaning institutions and monetary market funds), as they are
labelled in monthly reports of The National Bank of Romania for 2007- June 2014,
indicates some conclusions presented in Figure no. 8 for balance asset and liability.
Corporate governance and bank performance in the Romanian
banking sector
The present study examines how, in the period 2004-2011, the regulatory framework for
minimum capital requirements, the loan classification and provisioning for specific credit
risk, the liquidity and the insurance of deposits and specific indicators of banking
influenced the banks performance and the degree of banking development. Mainly,the
results indicate that the influence on bank performance is different from that on bank
development and the need for more stringent requirements in terms of equity and the
establishment of provisions related to the debtors probability of default in order to limit
the risk and to improve financial performance. Within the framework of financial system
deregulation, the financial crisis restores the attention to necessity for improving the
corporate governance in order to ensure financial stability. The study examines at the
level of the Romanian banking system the relationship between bank regulation, banking
industry-specific variables and national gross domestic product and bank development
and performance, being inspired by Barth et al., 2004. It shows that the influence of
regulations on capital adequacy and guarantees existence, unlike those regulations
regarding the setting of provisions, is positive over the bank performance and negative
over banking intermediation. Also, increasing borrowing helps to improve financial
performance, but has a negative influence on the bank development. The study
completes the analysis regarding the influence of internal corporative governance done
by Stefanescu, 2011, and shorter papers examining external governance over long
period of time (e.g. Barth et al., 2004 who conducted the study only for one point in
time), including rules for liquidity and other characteristics of regulatory variables and
various prudential indicators. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section

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2 reviews the literature and hypotheses development. Section 3 describes the data and
the variables. Section 4 describes the methodology and provides the empirical results.

Financial crisis, regulation and competition: the Romanian banking

experience
By the early 1970s, competition in the banking system was limited. Reduced competition
in the banking system was due to regulations adopted by many countries after the
financial crisis of the 1930s. At that time, authorities believed that the high risks which
banks have assumed, in a fierce competition context, led to destabilization of the
financial system. After the 1980s, deregulation, financial liberalization and technological
change were important factors that have led to increased competition in the banking
sector. Therefore, an important issue for regulators and supervisors is the relationship
between competition in the banking system and financial stability. The specialty
literature, both theoretical and empirical, has not reached a consensus on the effects of
competition on financial stability. This problem became more acute under the global
financial crisis. Against this background, the paper analyses the role of competition in
the Romanian banking system in the context of the global crisis. The paper is structured
as follows: the first section reviews the arguments supporting that increased competition
in banking system leads to improved financial stability; the counterarguments are
mentioned later.The role of regulations in managing the competition in banking system is
also emphasised. The last section analyzes developments on competition and stability in
the Romanian banking system. Over time an important issue for regulators and
supervisors was the relationship between competition in the banking system and
financial stability. The specialty literature has not reached a consensus on the effects of
competition on financial stability. The Great Depression of the 1929-1933s led to
adoption of regulations aimed to decrease competition in banking system. Gradually,
competition in banking system was allowed. The old regulations were removed and other
instruments to manage excessive risk taking were introduced. After 1990 the Romanian
banking system was restructured and legislation was aligned with the European Union
(UE) requirements. In the early stages the level of concentration in the banking system
was quite high,but at present it is lower. Foreign banks that have invested in Romania
contributed to increased efficiency and competition. But the global financial crisis
revealed that foreign banks could be an indirect channel of crisis propagation .

Romanian Banking Association

About RBA : Set up in May 1991 as a professional association, the Romanian Banking
Association has currently 37 members, credit institutions with majority private or state-
owned capital and branches or representative offices of foreign banks. The Romanian
Banking Association concentrates the entire banking industry of Romania, being the
voice of the banking sector in its relationship with the Romanian authorities, the
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International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, the World Bank and other
domestic and foreign bodies. RBA has become one of the strongest professional
associations from Romania, via the steady involvement of its members in conformity
with the provisions of the Associations by-laws and the laws in force.
The RBA`s activity should be seen as a transparent way to promote interests, the
proposals to amend laws or their amending if the foreseen impact is to bring about
negative effects for the banking system and, implicitly, for the economy. The RBA is
consulted on on-going basis and answers the requests of the authorities as
representative of the financial & banking business environment. The Romanian Banking
Association is a member in 28 national lucrative bodies set up to develop and improve
the overall economic framework. To this end, the banking community makes available
over 800 experts who make up RBAs technical commissions. The manner via which the
Romanian Banking Association represents and promotes the Romanian banking sectors
interests includes the local actions before domestic decision-makers such as the
Parliament, the Government, the National Bank of Romania, as well as the representation
actions at international level before the European Commission, the European Council,
the European Parliament and the International Monetary Fund. By influencing the legal
process, we intend to create a level playing field as regards the European legislation for
all players in the European Union. The setting up of the Romanian Banking Institute, of
the Bank Deposit Guarantee Fund and of the Credit Bureau, the process of denomination
of the domestic currency, enforcing the International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS), modernizing the Payment System, creating for banks a new reporting
system to the NBR, the standardization and harmonization of payment processes the
SEPA project are but some of the major projects impacting RBAs activity and its
collaboration with the National Bank of Romania (NBR).

The Romanian banking sector finances mainly the Romanian economy, providing about
90% of the total financing granted by the Romanian financial system. The banking
system of Romania that serves millions of customers has proven to be resilient during
the crisis, so that there was no need for the system to be bailed out with public money.
The RBA is a member of the European Banking Federation, of the European
Payments Council, of the European Mortgage Federation and of other international
bodies.

Vision
The vision of the Romanian Banking Association is to contribute to the
consolidation of a safe, predictable, transparent and reliable business environment in
Romania.

Mission
The mission of the Romanian Banking Association is to develop and consolidate

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the financial & banking sector as part of a high-performing, stable and efficient market.

References
International Economic Conference of Sibiu 2013 Post Crisis Economy: Challenges and
Opportunities, IECS 2013

Emerging Markets Queries in Finance and Business Financial crisis, regulation and
competition: the Romanian banking experience

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Emerging Market Queries in Finance and Business Corporate governance and bank
performance in the Romanian banking sector

2nd International Conference Economic Scientific Research - Theoretical, Empirical and

Practical Approaches, ESPERA 2014, 13-14 November 2014, Bucharest, Romania

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