Banks started the year in full gear and made net profit worth 87 million euros in January, up around 28% on December, despite having opened 101 new offices and hiring 177 people.

The first month in 2008 therefore created the premise for banks' profit to exceed one billion euros this year, driven by the increase in revenues from fees, as well as by maintaining significant interest margins.

The profits of the banking industry went up to about 825 million euros last year, with the market registering a monthly average of almost 69 million euros, according to data centralised by the NBR.

The growth driver, however, resides with big banks, which manage to collect higher sums from a higher business volume and can cope with expansion costs and attracting new clients better. This is why the top two banks on the market, BCR and BRD made over 600 million euros in net profit together - more than 70% of the profit of the entire system. On the other hand, some medium-sized and small banks concluded 2007 with little profit or even in the red.

The average net profit per bank amounted to about 2.2 million euros in January, compared with a monthly average of 1.7 million euros last year.

The solid growth of the profit made by the banking system in 2007 helped the return on equity (ROE) improve by 0.2% compared with 2006, to 10.4%. On the other hand, the return on assets (ROA) fell 0.2%, to 1.1%.

Despite the compression trend, the interest margins maintained above 5% for RON and 4% for euros and, along with the fast-paced increase in revenues from fees, they continue to drive the increase in profits made by banks.

The biggest two banking groups on the market increased their net revenues from fees by more than 50%, that is 53% for BRD to 296 million euros and 51.4% for BCR to 256 million euros. At the same time, the net interest margin went up b