Bank Leumi Romania said its after-tax profit for the nine months ending September 30 increased by 60% to 11.7 million lei (€2.76 million) from 7.3 million lei in the same period of last year.

The bank’s total assets remained within 2008 range at 1.311 billion lei (€ 312 million) in the period under review.

The bank’s loan book amounted to 942 million lei at the end of September 2009, versus 887 million lei a year earlier, while deposits reached 725 million lei at the end of third quarter this year.

“Bank Leumi Romania has revised its development strategy in line with the economic conditions, the focal points being an efficiency improvement of distribution network, repositioning in terms of business model, finding practical solutions for clients facing hardships in repaying their loans, offering competitive products and services as well as an effective cost control, measures that allowed us to keep profitability at a comfortable level”, said Laurentiu Gabriel Mitrache (photo), chief executive of the bank.

The bank’s share capital is currently at 272 million lei (up from 260 million lei at the end of 2008) and is 99.9% held by Bank Leumi le-Israel. Bank Leumi’s capital adequacy ratio was 25.56% under Basel, at wide margin from the statutory 8% level and from the banking sector’s average.