With the financial help of its new shareholders, MKB Romexterra is now trying to gain ground on the market of exporting companies, as well as on the project finance segment.

"We are trying to build exposure on the market of companies carrying out export activities. Bayern LB group's presence in the shareholder structure of our bank gives us access to a significant number of German companies with a solid presence on the domestic market," Magdalena Manea, executive vice-president with MKB Romexterra, in charge of coordinating activities on the corporate segment, told ZF.

Last summer, Hungary's MKB Bank, part of the powerful Bayern LB group, bought the majority stake in Romexterra Bank in a public offering. The Hungarians this spring decided to reshuffle the bank's management by splitting the administrative side from the executive one. Manea joined the management team last autumn as a chief executive and in spring was appointed as a vice president in the executive team.

MKB Romexterra is a second-tier player, with a market share of just 0.7% late last year, corresponding to assets worth 1.22bn RON (361m euros).

In the first five months, the volume of loans climbed by 45%, says Manea, getting close to the level total assets had reached last December. At the end of last year, the volume of loans amounted to almost 725m RON.

"Until last year most transactions were low value ones and were carried out in RON since we had only limited access to foreign financial markets. Now, backed by MKB and Bayern LB, we have easy access to loans from foreign banks, at costs that seemed out of reach before," explains Manea.

Though its still small size does not allow MKB Romexterra to enter the market of large corporations, Manea considers it has a significant growth potential on certain segments, including that of Hungarian companies. Manea says the