September will see the Austrian-based bank Erste launch its rebranding campaign for BCR. The new image of the largest Romanian bank will incorporate Erste's trademark red and blue colours, but the BCR name will remain unchanged, Andreas Treichl, executive vice-president at Erste Bank, told ZF.
"Starting in September we will begin our rebranding process at BCR, however, we are not changing the name itself and are not placing the Erste name next to BCR, because the BCR brand is very valuable. We intend to carry out an extensive advertising campaign to promote the new image, along with the new current account facilities, and plan to reach segments of the population that are not yet included in the banks' customer portfolios," explained Treichl.
Erste also kept the name of Czech Ceska Sporitelna bank, only adding to the logo a dark blue colour and an S symbol in red. The Austrians believe that the current shade of blue of the BCR logo is too weak and lacks outdoors visibility.
Treichl explains that he will need another 6-9 months for the changes operated by Erste at BCR to become fully apparent at the level of products and services. He declared that he was satisfied that BCR had stopped losing its market share in the second quarter, despite the bank undergoing a full restructuring and transformation process.
"Until March, we had been losing market share, including the mortgage segment, but in the second quarter the deterioration stopped and profitability improved, also showing that competition has eased up with regard to the pressure on prices," added Treichl
Treichl also believes that BCR will have to support significant investments by yearend, which includes investments related to the bank's entrance onto the pension market, put at 30m euros with the related marketing campaign, and also linked to the launch of the housing bank. Moreover, t
