Banca Italo Romena to focus on SMEs and liberal professions

Banca Italo Romena, controlled by the Italian Gruppo Veneto Banca, will increase its presence in the SMEs and liberal professions segments, but will also update its portfolio of retail products and services as part of wider strategy change on the Romanian market.

The lender has brought in a new Italian management team in the past months to boost its domestic presence. Paulo Mariani is the general director of the bank. He is supported by Roberto Broggini, commercial director, and Lucio Boato, lending department director. Gheorghe Muntean has been with the bank for over two decades and is the director of the Bucharest branch.

“For SMEs and liberal professions we will launch credit lines for investments and supporting current activities, packages of products and services at reduced costs, Business credit cards and savings products,” said Broggini. The lender will also provide leasing services after integrating Italo Romena Leasing.

“We want to be a more aggressive bank, more present on the market for Romanian, Italian and other companies,” said Mariani.

Boato said the banks will be present in the renewable energy and agriculture sectors as well as in structural funds, with co-financing products and consultancy services, by collaborating with specialized companies in this field.

The lender will finalize this year the upgrading of its IT infrastructure, in a program that amounts to EUR 2 million and is also considering setting up an online bank, according to Muntean.

However, the credit demand for companies seems to have dried up and Banca Italo Romena is also facing the issue of non-performing loans in its branches.

“We have requests for loan restructuring from SMEs to reduce the monthly payments, but we have few requests for new investments,” said Mariani.

Banca Italo Romena has 22 branches in Romania, out of which five in Bucharest, and reported a net profit of RON 30.6 million (around EUR 5 million) last year.