Out of the 32 credit institutions operating in the Romanian market, 25 entities reported positive financial results, with a cumulative net profit of RON 14.61 billion (€2.95 billion).
"In terms of profitability, there was a slight reduction in trends, with both return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) positioning below the previous year's level," according to the report.
In contrast, seven credit institutions recorded losses totaling RON 413.2 million (€83.4 million). This indicates a solid overall performance at the system level, despite some isolated difficulties, as highlighted by the cited source.
Compared to the previous year, net profit increased by 5% (RON 669.7 million / €135.2 million). This was primarily due to a RON 1.182 billion (€238.6 million) rise in operating profit, albeit attenuated by a 15.1% increase in the impairment of financial assets, from RON 1.56 billion (€314.7 million) at the end of 2023 to RON 1.796 billion (€362.4 million) at the end of 2024. Operating profit in 2024 was 6.6% higher than that achieved in the previous year.
Nevertheless, there was a greater increase in operating expenses (up by 21.1%, representing an additional €693.1 million, mainly due to increased administrative expenses) compared to operating income (up by 13.5%, €931.3 million).
An analysis of the structure of operating income highlights the continued predominance of net interest income, which accounted for 70.9% of total operating income at the end of 2024. Additionally, net fee and commission income had a share of 15.3% of the total income.
Meanwhile, the ROA recorded a value of 1.7%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage points compared to the previous year.
The liquidity of the banking system, as determined by the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), remained considerably above the regulatory requirement for the aggregated indicator (254.7% as of 31 December 2024, compared to the regulated minimum of 100%).
This indicated a significant stock of high-quality liquid assets for a 30-day stress scenario and was well above the European banking system's level of 163.4% on the same date.
