UniCredit Processes and Administration (UPA), the administrative services unit of Italy's UniCredit group, has so far invested millions of euros to select and train around 1,000 people that work for the Romanian subsidiary, stated Giandomenico Miceli, CEO of UPA.
"We invest a lot in people and their training because we need a high level of competence because human capital is our most important asset. UPA -Romania will become a skilled centre for payment processing for several banks from the UniCredit group," stated Miceli.
The Romanian subsidiary of UniCredit's back office unit became operational in 2005; a year later it had reached almost 500 people and currently has 980 employees.
"We went far beyond the targets of the three-year strategy we set in late 2004 when I came to Romania. Over the past year we've doubled our personnel to 980 people at present, and we continue to grow. (...) Our plan for the next three years entails a significant development of the operations transferred to the East and in Romania in particular, considering the integration of Capitalia bank will boost the operational volume both in Italy and Romania".
Besides Bucharest, UPA opened a second unit in Romania, in Iasi, where 200 employees are now working. Miceli reckons Iasi was chosen partly because of the salary difference to Bucharest, but said what mattered most was the city's having a university with well trained graduates.
Only 15 expats work for UPA in Romania, with the middle management level being already covered by Romanians. "We want to achieve a structure exclusively run by Romanians".
UniCredit brought UPA to Romania in 2005 in the context of an operating cost cutting strategy.
Miceli says that at present UPA Romania processes all the payment operations UniCredit Tiriac Bank carries out domestically and abroad. Also, for UniCredit Italy it
