Romania's banking system in 2009: profits less than 200 mil euro, banking network in decrease and 3700 laid off

Romania’s banking system profits for 2009 dropped to 772.3 million lei (a little less than 200 million euro( from 4.4 billion lei (1.2 billion euro) in 2008, Supervision Agency director Nicolae Cinteza declared.

The reason of the consistent drop is the contractionary economic evolution which lead to the disappearance of many companies. 20 banks closed 2009 with total losses of over 1 billion lei while the profits of winning banks exceeded 2 billion lei.

He added that the average salary per bank increased last year by 24.3% from 3,028 lei in 2008 to 3.765 lei. The number of lay offs in the banking system dropped by 3.724 over 2009. Moreover, banks closed 127 units representing 1.9% of the territorial network to 6,425 units.