THE MALE FAIRY OF BANCA TRANSILVANIA ALWAYS HAS A PLAN B Banca Transilvania has cast off the CPBR

We have gotten accustomed to Banca Transilvania (BT) distinguishing itself from the other lenders in Romania, as it has shown on several occasions that it is close to its customers, by making decisions that were unique in the market.

It would seem that Banca Transilvania really does have a plan...B, just like their male fairy mascot was telling us in the bank's ads.

While no other institutions in the Romanian banking system reacted, in the beginning of last year, to the explosion of the CHF exchange rate, towards sharing the burden with their borrowers, BT broke the ice with "Operation Iceberg", as it was the first to launch a program for the conversion of loans taken out in CHF by the customers of Volksbank, which it acquired last year.

While no lender has applied the same discount to the loan balance for all the debtors, in a conversion program, Banca Transilvania has diminished the balance of all CHF loans by a substantial discount of 22.5%.

Acting differently from its peers in the banking system when it came to the elimination of the existing fees in its loan agreements, BT has put an end to the risk/management fee for all the Volksbank borrowers, regardless of whether they had loans denominated in Swiss francs, Euros, dollars or lei.

Whereas some banks have refused the collective negotiations initiated by consumers, the officials of Banca Transilvania have repeatedly talked to the representatives of borrowers.

While over ten major banks have raised the downpayment on mortgages to 25%-50%, following the passing of the law of giving in payment, the downpayment requirements that BT has start at 20% for home-purchasing loans.

The latest surprising move which Banca Transilvania has made is retiring from the Council of Banking Professional Associations in Romania (CPBR), and remaining only a member of the Romanian Banking Association (ARB).

A joint position of BT and the CPBR, which its representatives sent us yesterday states the following: "The relationship between Banca Transilvania and the CPBR came from the fact that by acquiring Volksbank România last year, BT has automatically taken on, for a while, the rights and the obligations of VBRO as a member of the CPBR. BT has expressed its willingness to continue to cooperate on an institutional level with the CPBR on projects of common interest, but being further unable to allocate resources permanently as a member".

Any bank is free to leave the Professional Association whenever it wishes, in compliance with its bylaws, Bogdan Preda, executive director of Public and Institutional Relations with the CPBR told us, and he mentioned: "Each member is free to join or to leave an organization whenever they want (...) The membership of Banca Transilvania in the CPBR has been a right and an obligation which the bank had through the contract for the acquisition of Volksbank".

Oana Petrescu, a Deloitte partner, who had been appointed last year as an executive director of the Council last year, has also left.

In April 2014, some of the member banks of the Romanian Banking Association have spun off from this Association, forming the Council of Romanian Banking Professional Associations. The CPBR founding banks are the Romanian Commercial Banks, BRD - Groupe Societe Generale, Raiffeisen Bank and UniCredit Bank. ING, Volksbank and Bancpost have also joined the CPBR later.