CEC Bank leaps up three places to become Romania’s third-largest lender

Romanian state-owned bank CEC announced its net assets increased by 35% y/y to RON 83.5 billion (EUR 16.7 billion) at the end of 2023, which makes it the third-largest bank by assets after Banca Transilvania (BVB: TLV, RON 162 billion in assets) and BCR (part of Erste Bank Group, RON 108 billion in assets), according to Ziarul Financiar.

The bank thus surpassed BRD-SocGen and the local subsidiaries of ING and Raiffeisen over the past year, leaping up three places from sixth to third place as its market share improved from 8.8% at the end of 2022 to 10.4% one year later.

The sharp advance in 2023 is a natural continuation of CEC’s organic growth of its market share over the past years, from 6.6% in 2019.

CEC Bank has increased its assets by more than 2.5 times over the past five years, from under RON 33 billion in 2019 – the year Bogdan Neacsu was appointed as the CEO of the bank – up to RON 83.5 billion at the end of 2023.

After Unicredit takes over Alpha Bank, the subsidiary of the Italian financial group will surpass CEC, which is expected to drop one place to the fourth.

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