Raiffeisen Bank Romania posted more than 165 million euros in net profit in 2008 (calculated in line with the international accounting standards), an increase of 75.6% on the 2007 level, with the retail division contributing more than 50% to this result.

"2008 was an extraordinary year for us. I am extremely pleased with what we achieved, especially since profit does not include any one-off income and is strictly related to the operations of the bank. 2009 will be more difficult, but we are very well positioned to cope," said Steven van Groningen, Raiffeisen Bank chairman, who presented the yearly results of the bank yesterday for the eighth time. Most of the profit is slated to go to capitalising the bank.

Bogdan Popa, the bank’s chief financial officer, specified the Treasury contributed about 10% of the profit, retail more than 50%, and the rest came from the corporate division. As for revenue structure, interests and fees totalled 90%, while treasury and investment banking – 10%.

The volume of loans granted in 2008 went up by 14% to 2.67 billion euros. Van Groningen, however, added that Raiffeisen had also granted another 2 billion euros in loans, which were outsourced and registered as such abroad. "It’s no secret we started to outsource loans in 2005 and sell loan packages, which affected the trend of the assets."

Raiffeisen’s assets amounted to 4.65 billion euros at the end of 2008.

As a result of loan outsourcing, the volume of deposits attracted continued to exceed the volume of loans registered in the local balance sheet by far. "We have a lot of liquidity, and with a loan/deposit ratio of 73% we have an extraordinary position, completely different from many players on the market."

Van Groningen anticipates pressure on interest margin will maintain, revenues from fees will go down and provisions will increase in 2009, whic