November 21 (SeeNews) - The combined profit of banks operating on the Romanian market rose 11% year on year to 4.08 billion lei ($1.035 billion/ 878 million euro) in the nine months through September, as the share of non-performing loans (NPLs) dropped, data of the central bank showed on Tuesday.
Commenting on the results on Tuesday, Banca Transilvania analysts said that the strong increase in the banks' profits is due to the country's strong economic growth and the decrease in NPLs.
The Romanian banks' NPLs ratio fell to 7.96% at the end of the first nine months of 2017, down from 10% at the end of September 2016, central bank figures showed.
At the end of September, there were 36 credit institutions operating on the Romanian market, down from 37 at end-September 2016.
Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) for the nine-month period both stood in positive territory - at 1.36% and 12.9%, respectively.
Romanian banks' total net assets increased to 406.4 billion lei at the end of September, up 3.2% compared to the year earlier.
The Romanian banking system's capital adequacy ratio rose to 18.98% at the end of September from 19.68% at the end of last year.
(1 euro= 4.6469 Romanian lei)