Local lender OTP Bank Romania, part of Hungarian OTP Group, has opened the first center for non-formal financial education in Romania, in partnership with the Right to Education Foundation.

OTP Bank Romania has launched the Right to Education Foundation whose president is OTP Bank Romania CEO László Diósi. The investment in the new center amounts to EUR 600,000.

The 1,200-sqm unit, called OK Center, will host training and learning sessions for both students and adults, supported by 8 trainers. It is located on the Traian street in Bucharest.

The center in Bucharest includes four rooms that can host 80 people at once. Young people will learn how to manage money and financial concepts.

The bank manages a similar financial education center in Budapest. It has trained over 60,000 children in Hungary since 2013, as well as 10,000 children from abroad.

OTP Group plans to become the biggest financial group in Eastern Europe in the following years and is ready to spend some EUR 1 billion on acquisitions to reach this goal. The group eyes a market share of over 10% on the markets where it operates, but would settle for 7-8% in Romania, OTP Group CEO Sandor Csanyi said yesterday, as he attended the opening of the financial education center in Bucharest.

OTP is currently the 11th biggest bank in Romania, with a market share of over 2%, but it will double its size after the takeover of Banca Romaneasca, a subsidiary of National Bank of Greece, which should be completed at the beginning of 2018.

editor@romania-insider.com