Alpha adds 40 branches in Romania
BUCHAREST (SeeNews) – The Romanian unit of Greece’s Alpha Bank said yesterday it plans to add 120 branches to its network over the next three years as part of its expansion into Southeast Europe. In 2006 alone, Alpha Bank Romania will open 40 new branches, most of them in the capital Bucharest, the bank said in a statement. It has 30 units now. «At present we do not know the value of the planned investment. It is part of the bigger business plan of the bank in Greece,» a spokesman for Alpha Bank Romania told SeeNews. Alpha Bank, with 450 branches in Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia-Montenegro, plans to add 260 offices to its network in Southeast Europe by the end of 2008. In Romania, Alpha Bank aims to become one of the five biggest banks with a 10 percent market share by 2010. It plans to raise its market share in lending to 7.6 percent in 2008 from 4.6 percent in 2005 and boost its share of the deposit market to 5.2 percent from 2.8 percent. Alpha Bank’s business plan also includes opening 75 branches in Bulgaria, seven in Macedonia and 14 in Albania by 2008. It established in 1993 the wholesale bank Banca Bucuresti, the first foreign bank in Romania. It entered the Romanian retail market in 2001.
