Romania’s largest bank BCR is preparing to sell another EUR 550 million in non-performing loans (NPLs) after it finalized the sale of a EUR 227 million portfolio in July.

The bank announced an accelerated portfolio cleanup process, which was assumed by Austrian group Erste, its majority shareholder. The impact of this transaction in Erste’s results will be seen in the third quarter.

Erste posted a EUR 930 million loss for the first half of the year and BCR posted losses of EUR 62 million for the same period. BCR has a total NPL portfolio of EUR 2.9 billion.

German group Deutsche Bank and other financial investors bought the EUR 227 million NPL portfolio sold by BCR in July, according to sources from the banking sector quoted by Ziarul Financiar.

Deutsche Bank also bought a NPL portfolio from Volksbank Romania recently.

editor@romania-insider.com