OTP interested in Komercijalna Banka as well – Transaction of purchase of Vojvodjanska Banka completed

(Sandor Csanyi) OTP Bank Serbia and the National Bank of Greece (NBG) closed the financial transaction on December 11, thereby successfully completing the purchase of Vojvodjanska Banka, previously managed by the NBG.

The total amount paid by the Hungarian bank to former Greek owners amounts to around EUR 125 million.

With this purchase, OTP Bank Serbia has become the seventh biggest bank in the Serbian market, with a total share of around 6%. The bank has also become the third biggest one in Serbia looking by the size of the branch office network and the number of ATMs.

By closing the financial transaction, OTP Bank Serbia has become the owner of 100% of the share of the NBG in Vojvodjanska Banka, and the plan is for the integration to be completed by the spring of 2019.

Furthermore, the bank has also bought NBG Leasing as part of the package.

– On December 1, 2017, this well capitalized bank, founded a long time ago, and one of the ten best banks, became a very valuable member of the OTP Group. With this transaction and merger, we have shown our long-term and serious intentions in the banking market in Serbia, where we plan to continue growing and to solidify as the biggest independent banking group in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, said President of the OTP Group and CEO of OTP Bank Hungary, Sandor Csanyi.

According to him, Vojvodjanska Banka was very strong in the agrarian sector, but has lost a lot of this market in the past year, and OTP Bank therefore plans to turn this around and to “take the leading position in the agrarian field, at least in Vojvodina”.

He also said that, if adequate banks appeared in the market, OTP would be ready to buy them out as well. He added that there was interest in Komercijalna Banka as well, although there was not yet a tender.

– This is our plan for other countries in the neighborhood as well. Beginning next year, we will strengthen our presence and venture into new markets. This year, we also bought Splitska Banka in Croatia as part of this strategy – Csanyi said and added that OTP Bank had one of the strongest investment capitals.

He announced that new services would be presented to citizens of Serbia in the coming period and that special attention would be paid to digitizing banking services, in which OTP Bank heads the way in Hungary, as certain IT-related flaws had been detected in Vojvodjanska Banka.

Predrag Mihajlovic, former chairman of the Executive Board of OTP Bank Serbia and the new chairman of the Executive Board of Vojvodjanska Banka, said that, in the next few months, “the main focus will be equally placed on maintaining the highest level of quality in working with clients and successfully carrying out the process of integration”.

The bank's new managers have not yet decided whether Vojvodjanska Banka is to keep its name, and the decision will be made following a survey, though it is likely that the old name will stay.

Vojvodjanska Banka not to cooperate with Prosperitati Foundation

Chairman of the managing Board of OTP Bank Serbia, Laszlo Wolf, stated that the bank cooperated with Prosperitati Foundation, but that the Hungarian government, which subsidizes the fund, had not asked for the cooperation to expand to the operations of Vojvodjanska Banka up ill that point.

– If the Government of Hungary asks us to do so, we will, of course, oblige and serve all our clients who want to take out loans based on this line. At the moment, this seems unrealistic – Wolf said.

M.V.

OTP banka Srbija a.d. Novi Sad

Vojvođanska banka a.d. Novi Sad

NLB Komercijalna banka AD Beograd

OTP Lizing d.o.o.

Fondacija Prosperitati

OTP Bank Serbia

Vojvodjanska Banka

Komercijalna Banka

NBG Leasing

Sandor Csanyi

Laszlo Wolf

Predrag Mihajlovic

Prosperitati Foundation