Biggest financial group in Romania celebrates 30 years since launch: from USD 2 mln initial capital to EUR 4 bln capitalization

Founded in February 1994, in Cluj-Napoca, by a group of 46 Romanian entrepreneurs, Banca Transilvania (BVB: TLV) has grown into the biggest financial group in Romania and Southeast Europe, with over 4 million clients.

Launched with an initial investment of USD 2 million, Banca Transilvania now boasts a market capitalization of EUR 4 billion and 53,000 shareholders, which makes it one of the most valuable entrepreneurial stories in Romania.

As the group celebrated 30 years since its launch on February 16, Banca Transilvania chairman Horia Ciorcila, one of the 46 founders, and CEO Omet Tetik, who has been running its operations for over 10 years, issued a statement rememorating the bank’s evolution from a small team of 13 people in Cluj-Napoca to a national leader with over 500 units and 10,000 employees:

“Today is Banca Transilvania's day. Any anniversary makes us think about how the journey has been until now, what has been good and challenging, what has taken us so far, and especially how it all started, 30 years ago. The bank was born thanks to 46 founders, mostly from Cluj, who put together a capital of USD 2 million. The first customers were the very founders of the bank, but also families, friends, and neighbors. We started with a single unit, the Cluj Branch, and a team of 13 people, some of whom are still at BT today. The most enterprising years Romania in 1994 was quite gray. It was a few years after the Revolution, and we only dreamed of the European Union. Democracy and the Romanian capital were at the beginning. Banking was completely different, it was only about loans and deposits because even cards and ATMs appeared later. But there were also many opportunities because the economy and the country were in full transition from the centralized system - where everything was owned by the State - to a decentralized model based on private property. These 30 years meant the biggest transformations for Romania - in the economy, technology, lifestyle, standard of living, and financial education - and all of these were related to banking, which contributed essentially to the change. For Banca Transilvania, the period was an opportunity, but also a challenge to keep up with all the changes in society. Then, the EU brought a new breath, with free markets and financing that contributed to the development of the country, raising the standard of living, but also increasing competition, including among banks. In other words, BT grew up in a period that means the most enterprising years in Romania's history. From 15,000 customers to over 4 million There were many ideas and achievements during all these years, which wrote the history of the bank: the expansion in Romania (in 1994 we had 5 units), the listing on the stock exchange, the constant increase in the number of clients (in 1994, about 15,000 clients worked with us). This was followed by the adaptation of the business strategy to the economic context following the financial crisis of 2008. In the last ten years, we have accelerated growth as a financial group through bank acquisitions and technology investments, which have validated our current business model, based on large volumes.