CEC Bank
| CEC Bank SA | |
|---|---|
| Country |
 Romania
|
| Seat | Bucharest |
| legal form | Corporation |
| BIC | CECEROBUXXX |
| founding | 1864 |
| Website | www.cec.ro |
| Business data 2009 | |
| Total assets | 6.5 billion euros |
| Employee | 6,584 |
| management | |
| Board | Radu Gratian Ghetea (President), Gheorghe Carabasan (First Vice President) |
The CEC Bank (originally: Casa de Economii şi Consemnaţiuni , Spar- und Überweisungkasse) is the oldest still existing bank in Romania . Its history goes back to the year 1864. Today it is the only state-owned major bank in the country.
meaning
CEC Bank specializes in private customer business and maintains by far the densest branch network in the country, in contrast to other banks with a focus on rural areas. Of the 1,351 stores in 2009, 800 were outside of major cities. In many Romanian villages, CEC Bank is the only provider of banking services. However, the importance of the state institute has declined sharply in recent years. In 2002 there were 1700 CEC branches. The number of employees has been reduced from 12,000 this year to 6,584 in 2009. Immediately after the end of communism , the bank still had a 32.9% market share (based on total assets ). This decreased to 4.03% by 2006, but rose again slightly to 5.51% by June 2009.
Surname
The name of the CEC Bank has been changed again and again in its long history, but the abbreviation CEC has remained the same since 1932 and at that time stood for " Casa Nationala de Economii si Cecuri Postale " (National Savings and Postal Checkkasse ). This abbreviation is also a play on words in Romanian , as it sounds like the word " cec ", which means check . The Romanian Germans colloquially call the bank "the CEC" (pronounced: chäck).
The last name was changed in May 2008, since renamed the Institute officially under the short form " CEC Bank ".
history
In 1864, five years after the unification of the Danube Principalities of Moldova and Wallachia to form the Principality of Romania , the then ad-interim Finance Minister Nicolae Rosetti-Bălănescu in Mihail Kogălniceanu's cabinet initiated the establishment of a savings bank. This was approved by the Council of Ministers on June 28th of that year. In November of that year, the legislative package was adopted by Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza and the new Finance Minister Ludovic Steege. On January 1, 1865, the newly founded Casa de Depuneri si Consemnatiuni (deposit and transfer fund ) began its activities. The first head of the bank was the Austrian Erich Winterhalder , who lived in exile in Bucharest , a liberal economist and a former participant in the Romanian revolution of 1848 . However, the first premises were modest and were limited to three small offices in the building of the Ministry of Finance.
In 1873, the spread of Vienna and Budapest outgoing founder noise even from the Danubian principalities and brought the fledgling industries and railways and their backers in trouble. The Casa de Depuneri si Consemnatiuni survived this financial crisis. In 1876 it was put on a new legal basis by an amendment to the law. In 1880, the government under Prime Minister Theodor Rosetti decided by decree to found a savings bank as a subsidiary, which began operations on January 1, 1881 under the name Casa de Economie .
In 1897 the construction of a new representative headquarters in Bucharest began. The building by the architect Paul Gottereau was built on the site where the monastery of St. John the Great, built in 1591, was rebuilt in 1705 by Constantin Brâncoveanu and Radu Golescu and demolished in 1875. King Karl I and his wife Queen Elisabeth were present at the laying of the foundation stone. This building, known today as the CEC Palace (Roman: Palatul-CEC ) in Bucharest's Victoriei Street, was completed in time for the turn of the century. The bank's first board meeting took place there on June 15, 1900.
After the Kingdom of Romania entered World War I on the side of the Allies in the summer of 1916 , Bucharest was occupied by Austro-Hungarian and German troops on December 6, 1916 as part of a counter-offensive by the Central Powers . The bank's money and gold reserves were brought to safety together with the treasury of the Romanian National Bank before the invasion of Iași . For fear of further military successes by the Central Powers, the funds were later transferred to the allied Russian Empire under guarantees and evacuated to Moscow . The management of the bank split into two parts at the time. One group stayed in Bucharest and managed the bank's interests in the occupied part of Romania, the other part fled to the unoccupied Iași, which was also the provisional capital of the country until November 1918.
After the end of the First World War, the bank expanded its activities to the now considerably expanded territory of Greater Romania . In 1930 the Sparkasse was spun off as an independent state-owned company. When the Great Depression reached Romania in 1932, the bank's legal basis was reformed again. The legally possible field of business was thereby expanded and the name of the institute was changed to Casa Nationala de Economii si Cecuri Postale , abbreviated as CEC
After the Second World War, a currency reform took place under the first communist government of Petru Groza on August 15, 1947. 20,000 old Romanian lei are converted into a new leu. Existing balances were frozen interest-free. After the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania, the two savings banks Cassei de Depuneri si Consemnatiuni and Casei Nationale de Economii si Cecuri Postale were merged by decree on September 1, 1948 . On October 7, 1949, the bank was reorganized with Decree No. 387 and now operated under the name " Casei de Economii si Consemnatiuni din Republica Populara Romana (CEC) " (Savings and Deposit Fund of the Romanian People's Republic).
During this time, the institute supplied the population and the state's now planned economy with banking services. From 1953 savings books were offered, but initially they were interest-free and only had prizes in kind as an incentive. It was not until 1954 that interest was paid on these deposits. This year, CEC bonds were issued for the first time and letters of credit were offered. In 1961 a new incentive system for savings was created, particularly hard-working savers were given the opportunity to buy a car in addition to interest (see Dacia ). From 1962 the bank began to offer more banking services to the population and to build up a branch network throughout the country. From 1970 onwards, the bank financed the construction and purchase of homes as part of a state program and granted loans to private individuals. In the late years of the Ceaușescu government, government-fixed prices and mismanagement in industry led to severe bottlenecks in the supply of the population with food and consumer goods. It was typical of this time that the citizens had large sums of savings on their CEC savings accounts, but could not buy much with this money. Immediately after the Romanian Revolution in 1989 , these savings were largely devalued by galloping inflation .
After the end of communism, the bank had to adapt to the market economy environment. However, it remained state-owned and was thus still politically controlled. During these turbulent years, the bank increasingly lost market share, while newly established domestic banks and numerous foreign institutions forced their way into the Romanian market. In 1996 the savings and deposit cash register CEC was converted into a stock corporation, the finance ministry remained the sole shareholder. After the ruble crisis in 1998 and 1999, which also affected all of Eastern Europe, the Romanian government decided to privatize the major state banks. In 1999 the Banca Română pentru Dezvoltare was sold to the French Société Générale , in 2001 the Banca Agricolă to the Austrian Raiffeisenbank and in 2005 the sale of the Banca Comercială Română (BCR) to the Austrian Erste Group .
In the course of the privatization program of the Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu government, the majority of the shares in the CEC Bank were to be sold in 2005. Seven foreign investors showed interest, including Raiffeisen, Société Générale, the Greek National Bank and the Hungarian OTP Bank . The income from the privatization had also been planned for the construction of a motorway from Arad to Deva ( A1 ). But after Société Générale was the first to withdraw its offer, all other interested parties also withdrew from the privatization. In the end, only the Greek National Bank remained, offering € 560 million for 69.9% of the shares . After the record sale of the BCR of 3.75 billion euros, this sum was disappointing and so the government decided in December 2006 to stop the privatization process.
The Casei de Economii si Consemnatiuni CEC - SA remained the only major bank in state ownership. On May 11, 2007, the economist Radu Graţian Gheţea was appointed as the new president of the bank, who should now consolidate the institute. In March 2008, with the approval of the government, the bank adopted new statutes and in May of that year the name was changed. Since then it has had a new logo as CEC Bank SA .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry in the BIC directory at SWIFT
- ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung: 1000 new branches in the banking sector - the first five banks hold 70 percent of the nationwide network ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 1, 2007
- ↑ money.ro: Radu Gheţea, CEC Bank: Solvabilitatea băncii depăşeşte 18% ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Nov 24, 2009 (Romanian)
- ↑ a b cec.ro: History - Timeline (English)
- ^ Enciclopedia României: Eric Winterhalder
- ↑ George Făgărăşan: România o sută de ani de dezvoltare (1848-1948) , Editura Democrația, 2002, p. 85
- ↑ 9am.ro: Palatul CEC devine muzeu de arta , October 24, 2006 (Romanian)
- ^ Sebastian Bonifaciu, Emanuel Valeriu: Bucharest from A to Z , p. 85, Pontica Handbooks, Publishing House for Tourism, Bucharest 1974
- ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung: Seven interested parties in the race for CEC - French Société Générale has withdrawn ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , October 26, 2005
- ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung: Arad-Deva motorway will be built in 2008. Transport minister with additional explanations ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , November 3, 2006
- ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung: Romania dissatisfied with offers for CEC - government is considering making CEC more attractive through investments ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , January 14, 2006
- ↑ Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung: CEC is aiming for 6 percent market share - Vosganian: No privatization in the near future ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , May 30, 2007
Coordinates: 44 ° 25 '55.2 " N , 26 ° 5' 47.4" E