Levels of foreign ownership vary widely among the banks of the eastern Black Sea countries. While foreign-owned banks went too far, too fast before the crisis, they may be more resilient than locally owned players in a downturn.

In the past decade, foreign investment and natural resources wealth have transformed the banking landscape in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The Banker's latest ranking for the region shows which countries have benefited the most from this change.

Moldova is a land-locked country of about 4.2 million people. Gross domestic product (GDP) for 2004 was about 32bn lei ($2.6bn), a growth of 7.3% in real terms over 2003. Major contributors to real GDP growth were agriculture (3.4%), services (2.6%) and manufacturing (0.9%).

Moldindcombank
Victor Cibotaru, Chairman of the Administrative Committee