The Romanian subsidiary of the Greek Piraeus Bank recently sold a portfolio of non-performing loans worth around EUR 13 million to Polish debt recovery firm Kredyt Inkaso. Piraeus Bank Romania sold unsecured loans to the Polish debt company, including personal loans and credit card debts, with consumer loans reportedly accounting for around 10 percent of the deal.

"Starting from the fourth quarter of 2012, we began building our structures on Romanian and Bulgarian markets that have been already prepared for conducting operating activities and service of debt packages purchased by us. We estimate that the nominal value of sub-standard, consumer receivables offered for sale in Romania amounts to about PLN 2 billion annually (the equivalent of some EUR 480 million)," said Paweł Szewczyk, the President of Kredyt inkaso S.A. Management Board.

"From our point of view, both those markets are considerably less competitive than the market in Poland. It is true that there is one significant entity on the Romanian market; however, I am sure that there will be the place for both us and the competition,"  Szewczyk added. One of the largest debt recovery firms in Romania is Polish Kruk.

Piraeus Bank reported a 10-percentage-point increase in non-performing loans in 2012, reaching 28 percent of the total portfolio. Meanwhile, the bank's lending stagnated at around the EUR 3 billion level. Kredyt Inkaso takes large debt packages with 80 percent of its portfolio from banks and the remainder from the telecom sector.

editor@romania-insider.com