Raiffeisen Bank is close to acquiring Garanti BBVA Romania from Spanish banking group BBVA, according to sources cited by Profit.ro. The Austrian lender’s offer is currently preferred by the seller and may be designated the winning bid if the deal is finalised and receives approval from Romania’s central bank and competition authority.

Three banks - Raiffeisen Bank, ING Bank, and Intesa Sanpaolo - were interested in the acquisition, with February 13 set as the deadline for submitting offers.

Raiffeisen Bank, part of Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), currently ranks sixth on the Romanian banking market with a market share of 9.31%. The acquisition of Garanti BBVA Romania would raise its share to above 11% and move the bank into fourth place, behind Banca Transilvania, BCR, and UniCredit, surpassing BRD Groupe Société Générale and CEC Bank.

Garanti BBVA Romania was put up for sale again last year by the BBVA group after a previous attempt to sell the subsidiary in 2020 was halted during the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Hungary’s OTP Bank and Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo had reached the final stage of the bidding process, but the Spanish group eventually suspended the sale, unwilling to accept a discounted price for a profitable operation.

The Romanian bank is owned by Garanti BBVA Turkey through a holding company registered in the Netherlands. Garanti BBVA Turkey itself is controlled by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), one of the world’s largest banking groups with core operations in Spain and Latin America.

Romania has remained a peripheral market within the group’s structure, as the local subsidiary continued to be managed through the Turkish banking arm even after BBVA acquired Garanti Turkey. Opportunities to develop cross-border business with the Romanian diaspora in Spain were not fully exploited, while organic expansion in Romania became more difficult in an increasingly competitive banking market marked by consolidation, rising cost pressures, and stricter capital requirements.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: the company)