The Portuguese-owned Millennium Bank, which at the end of 2006 was granted a licence to operate in Romania, has so far recruited over 100 individuals, with a view to starting operations in the second half of this year. "We have now secured the basic personnel for our headquarters. We have covered all departments, but our team is still incomplete. We are continuing to recruit staff for our entire network as well," Jose Toscano, CEO of Millennium Bank Romania, told ZF.
According to the plans announced at the beginning of this year by the parent bank - Millennium BCP - the domestic division will begin operating in September with a 40-branch network. Millennium, Portugal's largest bank, was interested in taking over BCR, but in the final stage of the process lost out to the Austrian-based Erste Bank. As a result, the Portuguese bank decided to start from scratch in Romania.
"We managed to attract good professionals, but there were some cases when those we sought to employ chose a different path," explained Toscano. Information has been floating around the market that the Portuguese are offering high wages, with a view to attracting personnel. However, the head of Millennium believes that they are not offering wages "above the market level" emphasising that recruiting the appropriate personnel is highly competitive, as it is for the entire market.
The Portuguese have a strong experience, with subsidiaries in Greece and Poland, and are certain to use this understanding of foreign markets in order to carry out rapid developments in Romania.
"We are taking advantage of the experience the bank has on other regional markets. We constantly have 20-30 experts, either from the parent bank or from the branches located in Greece or Poland, who are working with our local team," said Toscano. At present the local team is continually growing, with new indiv
