Romania’s largest bank BCR, which is part of Austrian group Erste, recorded a net profit of EUR 206 million in 2015.

In 2014, the bank had net losses of EUR 630 million, due to high write-offs related to non-performing loans totaling almost EUR 1 billion.

Last year, BCR had no more losses from non-performing loans. Moreover, the result related to NPLs was positive, as the bank reversed some provisions due to higher recoveries.

The overall NPL ratio declined to 20.2% of the total loans portfolio, at the end of 2015, from 25.7% in December 2014. BCR also granted over EUR 1.9 billion of new loans last year, more than half of which were retail loans.

The total net loans portfolio was unchanged compared to December 2014, at some EUR 7.2 billion, while the deposits went up by 6.8%, to almost EUR 9.5 billion.

The bank’s assets were close to EUR 13.9 billion at the end of December 2015.

Andrei Chirileasa, andrei@romania-insider.com