Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding AG, the CEE arm of Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG (RZB), has surpassed the threshold of 10 million customers in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). At the end of February 2006, Raiffeisen International served 10.01 million customers, of which 99 per cent are retail customers (these figures do not include Impexbank, whose acquisition was announced at the beginning of February). This reflects an increase of 5.0 million customers or 100 per cent compared to the year-end figure 2004, including 3.4 million customers of Bank Aval in Ukraine, which was acquired by Raiffeisen International in October 2005. At year end 2005 the group counted 9.7 million customers. In terms of organic growth Raiffeisen International attracts 110,000 new customers on average per month. Raiffeisen International will present its annual results for 2005 on Thursday, 30 March 2006.
“The fact that 110,000 customers in CEE turn to Raiffeisen every month is a vital sign of the trust in our Raiffeisen brand”, stated Herbert Stepic, CEO of Raiffeisen International. “Our strongly increasing customer base is a consequence of our clear focus on branch building and consumer lending”, added Aris Bogdaneris, Board Member of Raiffeisen International responsible for Retail Banking. “We aim at continuing to expand our customer base faster than the market.”
Raiffeisen International began to focus on retail banking in 1999. At the end of 2002, Raiffeisen International already served 1.9 million customers and 3.2 million at the end of 2003. This translates into a compounded annual growth rate of customers of 72 per cent between 2002 and 2005.
The retail banking markets in CEE provide long-term growth potential. Especially credits to private individuals are considered as the key growth engine for the banking sectors in CEE. Loans to households range from 3.8 per cent to 12.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in CEE compared to 50.2 per cent in the Eurozone. In order to fully utilize this growth potential a strong and wide-spread branch presence as well as a comprehensive customer base is necessary.
