Next spring, a new lender with Romanian private capital could enter the banking market, if the shareholders manage to get a licence from the National Bank.

"The Supervision Department has received a number of licence applications for banks, including banks with very good Romanian capital. The file was submitted a month ago, some comments were made," stated Nicolae Cinteza, head of the NBR's Supervision Department.

He reiterated that the selection NBR makes when accepting an individual or legal entity as shareholder in a bank was "very rigid and tough."

"We are not only interested in it having the money, but in its capacity to ensure support over the course of time," Cinteza said. However, he did not specify which lender he was talking about.

One of the institutions to have submitted licensing papers to the NBR is Capa Finance, the micro-financing company controlled by Romanian-American Enterprise Fund (RAEF) investment fund, according to Horia Manda, senior vice president and chief investment officer of RAEF.

RAEF bought Capa Finance last year, following a share purchase and a 15 million-euro capital increase. The shares of the micro-financing firm are currently divided among RAEF (55.47%), Emerging Europe Cap Cooperatief U.A. (43%), Secap Management (1%) and Chindris Adrian Petru (0.49%), according to the data available at the Trade Registry. Capa Finance posted 4.2 million euros in turnover and 120,000-euro net profit last year.

This is not RAEF's first involvement in the banking business, as in 2003 it sold the majority stake it had in Banca Romaneasca to the National Bank of Greece.

Since 2000, Romanian private capital has had a low profile in the banking system, and has now reached 6.8% of the capital in banks, which is four banks out of 42, of which Banca Transilvania is the only one among the top ten by assets. @N