VICTORIABANK ANNUAL SHAREHOLDERS SITTING TO DIRECT 2018 BANK PROFIT TO DEVELOPMENT

The profit earned by the Moldova's first private bank Victoriabank in 2018 - 167 million lei - will be most likely directed to development.

According to one of Victoriabank shareholders, the current owners of the bank - the Banca Transilvania, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), as well as founders and first bank heads - Victor Turcan and Galina Proidisvet, will most likely agree with the bank Administrative Council's proposal to direct the 2018 profit to bank capitalization.

"Now, when the bank belongs only to a dozen of shareholders, they have the right to do what they consider as right with the profit. The fact that the Administrative Council recommended not to distribute the 2018 profit and shareholders will agree with this, means that bank owners want to intensively develop the institution, postponing the payment of dividends for later", said one of bankers to Infotag.

He pointed at the fact that currently, Victoriabank majority shareholder - the Romania's largest bank Banca Transilvania - is applying its business model in the Victoriabank, which demands additional financial resources.

Before, Victoriabank Chairman Bogdan Plesuvescu said in an interview to Infotag that the private persons' share in the bank credit portfolio accounts for 22%. The bank is going to double it.

"Over comparatively short time, we want to raise our share in servicing Moldovan small and medium enterprises to 20% from 14%", the banker said.

Infotag's dossier: Victoriabank is the Moldova's third largest bank. It has over 600 thousand clients, 100 offices and 1.3 thousand employees. In 2018, the Victoriabank net profit exceeded 167 million lei - the fourth result in the system. Assets accounted for 14.3 billion lei, while capital - 2.4 billion lei.