Romanian lender Banca Transilvania prepares for tomorrow’s high-tech banking with EUR 50 mln investments in last 5 years

Banca Transilvania, the third largest bank in Romania by asset value, invested EUR 50 million in new technology in the last five years in order to prepare for an increased operational volume, said Horia Ciorcila, the bank’s president and one of its main shareholders. “We believe that tomorrow’s banking will be based not just on people but also on technology. This is why in late 2008, when the Romanian economy was falling and there was almost no demand for credit, we decided to go against the cycle and make investments. Since then we invested about EUR 50 million, some EUR 10 million a year. An important part of this sum went to the collaboration with Oracle for implementing the new core-banking system which we started enforcing in 2011 and we finished in 2013,” Horia Ciorcila said in a press conference which Banca Transilvania held together with Oracle representatives. He said that the system change was inevitable because the old one was close to its limits and could not support the growth in the bank's daily operations. “It’s not just the market share that matters. Our operational volumes have grown three times from 2009 to 2014, which shows that the bank is very lively,” Ciorcila added. The bank now processes a few hundred transactions a second, Banca Transilvania’s CEO Omer Tetik also mentioned. “One million clients enter our offices each month and over 400,000 use our online banking services. Since we finished implementing the new core-banking system, at the beginning of 2013, we attracted 100,000 new customers and our market share grew to almost 9 percent, loans went up by 12 percent and deposits increased by 15 percent,” Tetik said. A team of 60 people were involved in implementing the new core-banking system, 40 from Banca Transilvania and another 20 from Oracle, plus Oracle expert teams from Greece and Bangalore (India), said Leontin Toderici, Banca Transilvania’s chief operating officer (COO). In addition to the core banking system, Banca Transilvania also changed its customer relationship management (CRM) system and introduced new safety features, which were also provided by Oracle. Banca Transilvania is currently the number three bank in Romania, with total assets of EUR 7.4 billion and a market share of 9 percent. The bank has some 1.78 million clients and has issued 2.14 million cards, according to data available at the end of the first quarter 2014. Banca Transilvania’s largest shareholders are the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with a 14.6 percent stake, Romanian investment funds SIF Moldova, SIF Muntenia, SIF Banat-Crisana and SIF Oltenia, which have a combined stake of about 20 percent, and Horia Ciorcila, the bank’s founder and president of the board, who owns 5.1 percent of the shares. Banca Transilvania is listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) and has a market capitalization of EUR 934 million. Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com