While some definitions of the region also include Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, the SEE discussed here is limited to Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia, which together saw gross domestic product growth of 6.4% in 2006, well above the eurozone rate of 2.9%. According to a recent report by Standard & Poor’s, the region’s banking system has had annual growth of 15.3% from 2001 to 2005, compared with only 6.6% in the eurozone, with positive momentum in the retail lending segment as foreign bank ownership provides strong financial support.
The Top 10 banks in the SEE are dominated by the banks of the two largest economies, Romania and Croatia, providing four and six of the leading banks respectively. Banca Comerciala Romana, which was acquired last year by Austria’s Bank Erste, is the largest in the region with Tier 1 capital of $1.4bn. BCR and the two leading Croatian banks, Privedna Banks Zagreb (owned by Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo) and Zagrebacka Banka (owned by Italy’s UniCredit) are significantly larger than the other major SEE banks.
