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, there are additional restructuring charges estimated at 40m euros, of which 11.4m euros were registered in the first half. However, Treichl does not believe there is any danger of the bank failing to meet its annual profit target of 350m euros.
BCR also posted additional costs in the first half of the year, with one of the reasons mentioned by Treichl being that unsecured retail loans are no longer considered as covered in terms of risks by policies sealed with BCR Asigurari, but they are provisioned by the bank. For H1, there were loans worth around 1.5bn euros, for which new provisions of around 20m euros were set up, which created an impact on income.
Treichl says that in September he will also announce the number of redundancies and new jobs at BCR, as 2,700 staff are no longer required in back office positions, whilst network expansion is expected to absorb around 1,000 staff within the next two years. The bank plans to open 100 new locations this year, with the average cost per new unit being put at approximately 120,000 euros.
BCR rebranding
Erste will start its rebranding process at BCR in September
The new image of BCR will include Erste's red/blue colours, but the BCR name will remain unchanged
New current account facilities will be added, with BCR planning to reach population segments not yet included in the banks' customer portfolios
It will take another 6-9 months for the changes operated by Erste at BCR to become fully apparent at the level of products and services
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