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Western EuropeApril 4 2004

Top 50 South East European Banks

South east Europe is growing fast and the major banks in the region, particularly the Greek banks, are rapidly expanding their capital base as they expand their networks into neighbouring countries. This year’s Top 50 South East European banks listing shows that aggregate Tier 1 capital has risen by 33.6% to $32bn from $24bn in last year’s listing. Some of the major Greek banks significantly increased their capital to support future expansion. National Bank of Greece (NBG), the largest bank in the region, increased its Tier 1 capital by 58.8% to $3.71bn at the end of 2003 thereby markedly raising its Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio from 7.4% to 10.3%. Alpha Bank also saw Tier 1 capital rise by a significant 48.9% to $2.64bn. Panayotis Thomopoulos, deputy governor of the Bank of Greece, believes Greek banks have the highest levels of Tier 1 capital in the EU at 10%.
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Turkish banks also figure prominently in the listing, with its 18 banks accounting for 41.6% of Tier 1 capital compared to the 10 Greek banks’ 46%. Turkiye Is Bankasi jumps into second place with Tier 1 of $3.0bn at the end of 2003. The next largest country grouping is Cyprus whose four banks account for 5.1%. Next comes Romania’s six banks with 4.1% and Bulgaria’s seven banks with 2%.

While only 11 banks have capital in excess of $1bn, the smaller banks have been growing fast with seven showing growth in excess of 100%. In asset terms, NBG continues to dominate the listing with assets nearly double that of its nearest competitors Alpha bank and EFG Eurobank Eglasias. Again the size of the banks is relatively small with only 13 banks having assets in excess of $10bn.

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