The parent banks of the nine largest foreign-owned banks incorporated in Romania have all signed bilateral letters with International Monetary Fund and European Commission committing their respective groups' overall exposure to Romania and increasing the capital of their bank subsidiary to maintain a 10 percent capital adequacy ratio throughout Romania's Economic Program.
The parent banks of the nine large foreign-owned banks incorporated in Romania hold an aggregated market share of 70% of the local banking system, and these letters confirm their commitment to fulfill the objectives agreed upon in Vienna on March26 and subsequently on May 19, 2009 at Brussels.
The banks are Erste Group Bank, Raiffeisen International, Eurobank EFG, National Bank of Greece, Société Generale, Alpha Bank, Volksbank, Piraeus Bank, and UniCredit Group.
A joint team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Commission (EC) has reviewed the status of these commitments. Exposures were broadly observed with some temporary deviations stemming from specific large transactions around the reporting dates. Foreign banks' financial commitment towards Romania was further consolidated and expanded through the 1bn euro Club loan extended by a group of banks to the Romanian Government in July.
On August 6, officials of the National Bank of Romania, the IMF and the EC met with local representatives of the nine banks in Bucharest to take stock of the experience accumulated so far and discuss the next steps of this critically important initiative, which ensures the stability of a key share of the bank funding available to Romania and thus provides strong assurances about the continued good financial standing of its banking system.
The IMF stressed that the success of Romania's macroeconomic reform program and the sustainability of its balance of payments de
