Banking offices' role will increasingly involve consulting services, while basic services tend to be carried out using cards or through the Internet, says Rozaura Stanescu, head of the retail products department of BRD-SocGen.
"We'll see offices shifting to tasks with a higher added value: providing financial consulting services and real estate loans," says Stanescu. Banks will take advantage of the automation of simple operations, while not driving customers away from offices.
Some players, such as ING, have counted on the development of a network model where basic operations are carried out with the aid of machines, while personnel exclusively provides consulting services. However, most banks have chosen to rely on the traditional model, where all services are provided with the help of employees. Other players, such as BCR or BRD, have also launched test-projects, but have yet to expand the model.
Domestically, banks have significantly developed their territorial networks over the past two years, with the total number of branches exceeding 5,400. The broadening territorial presence has allowed banks to take over bill-payment services for most utilities.
However, carrying out these basic payment services involved high costs and banking branches became overcrowded. Thus, banks such as Raiffeisen and BCR gave up these bill payment services for certain providers or introduced a fee designed to encourage the use of alternative payment channels.
Stanescu says BRD has no plans, at least for the moment, to scale down these operations. However, the bank has developed several alternative channels.
In terms of banking network density, Romania, with around 25 branches per 100,000 inhabitants, has now surpassed Poland, though it still lags behind other markets, such as the Czech one.
Stanescu underscores the very rapid rate of banking network expansion in recent years, but considers that on medium term some degree of consolidation is imminent, at least among small players, for which operating costs will become ever harder to sustain. On the one hand, the still low level of economic development and the important rural areas yet to be covered by banks show there is still potential for the number of units to rise.
Only four commercial banks, BRD, BCR, Raiffeisen and Banca Transilvania operated networks in excess of 400 branches last year, while three other banks operated more than 200 branches each. The statistics do no include CEC's network (1,400 branches), as it is now undergoing restructuring.
On the other hand, Stanescu points to the fast rising degree of Internet-banking platform access, after the number of people who used these services had registered an annual 94% increase in September 2007. BRD-SocGen has over 100,000 Internet banking users, after the bank's portfolio expanded by 130% last year.
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