Austrian banks to repatriate half of their profits generated in Romania last year

The management of the two Austrian banks in Romania – BCR-Erste Bank Group and Raiffeisen Bank (Romania), propose to their parent groups the disbursement of a dividend equal to half of the record net profits achieved last year by each bank, according to Profit.ro.

BCR, the second largest bank in Romania, wants to transfer to the Austrian shareholder, which controls almost the entire bank, a dividend of RON 1.24 billion (EUR 250 million). BCR ended 2023 with a net profit of RON 2.32 billion, nearly double that of the previous year.

BCR started paying more consistent dividends only in the last three years, while the post-crisis dividend payment resumed only in 2019 (for the year 2018), after an 8-year hiatus. It made profits of less than EUR 2.8 billion between 2006, the year of privatization, and 2023. Erste collected, with the proposed 2023 dividend, about EUR 1.1 billion in total.

Raiffeisen Bank (Romania) wants to distribute a dividend of RON 860 million (about EUR 173 million) to the parent financial group. Last year, the group increased its profit in Romania to RON 1.7 billion (EUR 340 million) from RON 1.26 billion in 2022.

Since 2003, Raiffeisen (Romania) has achieved cumulative profits of more than EUR 2.5 billion, out of which it passed on to shareholders (including the proposed dividend for last year) about EUR 1.1 billion.

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