June 1 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian unit of Greece's Eurobank, said on Thursday that it has completed the acquisition of the local business of BNP Paribas Personal Finance, the wholly-owned retail financing subsidiary of French lender BNP Paribas Group, after receiving all required regulatory approvals.
The acquired unit, rebranded as PB Personal finance by Postbank, propels the buyer to second place in the local consumer loan market, contributing a portfolio of over 960 million levs ($523.9 million/490.8 million euro) of consumer loans, Eurobank Bulgaria, which operates under the Postbank brand, said in a press release.
You can subscribe to our M&A newsletter here
The portfolio offers significant opportunities for cross-selling and for implementing new digital solutions for customers, including setting up and managing deposits exclusively online.
BNP Paribas' personal finance unit in Bulgaria booked an after-tax profit of over 10 million levs in the first quarter of this year. It has total assets of some 990 million levs, gross loans of over 960 million levs and deposits of 180 million levs. It will add 44 new locations to PostBank's branch network, which will solely offer products and services of the PB Personal finance by Postbank brand.
The acquisition, agreed in December, is seen as a step forward for Postbank in establishing it as a systemic bank for the market and is also of key importance for the Eurobank group's strategy of expanding activities on significant regional markets in which it has a leading position, the lender added.
PostBank, legally named Eurobank Bulgaria, is the fourth largest lender by assets in the country, most recent central bank data show.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
Eurobank Bulgaria AD is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here