At the ZF Bankers Summit 2026, organised by Ziarul Financiar on June 2–4, Banca Transilvania was represented on day one by Ömer Tetik, CEO, Cosmin Călin, Deputy CEO, Large Corporate, Aurel Bernat, Executive Director, Financial Institutions and Investor Relations, Oana Ilaș, Deputy CEO, Retail Banking, and Cătălin Caragea, Deputy CEO, Risk.

Statements from day two of the event can be found here.

Ömer Tetik, CEO, Banca Transilvania:

• The banking system’s stability is very strong in terms of capitalisation and liquidity; both Banca Transilvania and the system as a whole are in their best shape.
   
• Our focus remains on Romania because, as long as we’re still behind and there is lending and growth potential, we don’t want to lose that focus. If we look at four five-year cycles, Banca Transilvania has doubled its assets every five years. That’s our target as well, at least for the period ahead. If we double the bank’s assets over the next five years, we’ll simply be in line with the trend — it’s not an overly ambitious target. That’s our goal and our vision.
  
  
• We’re also looking outside Romania — not because we think we can make a difference in countries like France or Germany, where banking systems are very strong — but at a few countries around Romania where we’d like to open either representative offices or branches.
  
  
• We built the 2026 budget in November and haven’t changed anything despite external and internal shifts, including the geopolitical context in the Middle East and the domestic political situation. We’ve maintained our commitment to deliver close to 10% lending growth.
  
  
• Over the last 10–20 years, growth has been consumption-led; now Romania is changing and moving toward a production-based economy, industrialisation and investment in infrastructure. Demand among smaller companies and in retail is more tempered, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Growth continues: in the first quarter we opened over 130,000 accounts at BT. Payments via BT Pay are very popular and visible in the local market.
  
  
• We see faster growth and lending demand in renewables, storage and batteries, where investment is significant, as well as in infrastructure — from hospitals to roads. In two or three years, we’ll be surprised how quickly we’ll get to Sibiu, Iași and other cities. For now, what we feel most when travelling between cities is the inconvenience of ongoing works. Even agriculture — through investment in irrigation and machinery — has very large potential. Romania can become an important supplier of food products for Europe.
  
  
• Digitising the economy is an end-to-end process; we can’t digitise only banking, we also need digitisation at central government level and across small and large companies. Ten years ago we announced we’d reached 1 million card transactions on Black Friday. On Black Friday 2025, we recorded 11 million transactions. The pace of adoption is rapid, including in rural areas.
  
  
• On the Competition Council investigation: our base case is that over the next four to five years there will be litigation and discussions in the event fines are imposed. It’s not about the amounts or their impact; our goal is to demonstrate there was no cartel or collusion, and that ROBOR’s movement was driven by market factors — international markets, inflation and the policy rate. It’s common sense for everyone to continue lending and developing the economy rather than waste time on misperceptions.
  
  

Cosmin Călin, Deputy CEO, Large Corporate, Structured Finance and Factoring:

• We’re feeling the effects and paying the price for the last five years. On top of that, 2026 brought its own turbulence. Just when you think nothing else can happen, unexpected events occur. No one expected the Gulf crisis. We have, however, learned what such a crisis means and we’ve also seen the resilience of Romania’s economy.
  
  
• After a very good 2025 for us, in 2026 we continued stabilising the organisation and capturing all the synergies both from integrating OTP Bank România and from organic growth.
  
  
• We look to the second half of the year with optimism. We’re seeing an improvement in lending and there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. There are opportunities, and we hope this period of uncertainty will calm down in the near future.
  
  
• There are local opportunities in almost every field, from IT&C — where we’re already a regional and even global force — to the newest trends generated by programmes like SAFE, from drone and anti-drone manufacturers to the most sophisticated tech solutions. It’s a very broad spectrum, from plain vanilla projects to the most advanced and innovative ideas.
  
  
• In M&A generally we see very strong potential, without singling out any sector. We’re quite strong in this area and able to offer solutions both locally and regionally. There are significant opportunities across most sectors of the economy.
  
  
• Every M&A deal comes with a growth component. Any such transaction provides a platform for future financing and for business development. Over the last six years we’ve scaled this line of business significantly. We started with smaller deals and moved into mid- and large-size transactions. Today our non-performing loan (NPL) ratio is below 1%, which shows M&A activity has been prudently managed and offers real growth opportunities.
  
  
• Retail remains a very important sector in Romania, with prospects for growth and market consolidation. We’ve also seen both local and regional consolidation in healthcare. In short, the opportunity mix is split between local organic growth and regional expansion supported by deals and consolidation.
  
  

Aurel Bernat, Executive Director, Financial Institutions and Investor Relations:

• We’re seeing portfolios and ETFs start to gain traction. If we look regionally at how the local market is valued, we’re below our neighbours. Bulgaria fares better than we do.
  
  
• The backdrop is inflationary, with investors looking closely at the opportunities and alternatives available to them. On the other hand, the impact of investment funds and pensions is still quite limited as a share of GDP. Only recently are we seeing real traction into investments.
  
  
• We see a picture in which alternatives are being sought and yields are attractive, but this shouldn’t be the end point — it should give us confidence given we’ve reached 500,000 clients in investment funds. It feels like only now are we truly starting to talk about these things.
  
  
• Looking at Romania as it is, there are two major listed sectors with strong traction: banking and energy. These areas are on a roll, and so is the market. Investors look at Romania with respect and, if the political situation is resolved in good time, our potential should be reflected in higher valuations.
  
  
• While we all agree past performance is no guarantee, it is very relevant for the local market and encourages investors to invest. There’s also the issue of inflation, which many investors see as pressing. In this context, one simple form of protection is to look toward instruments with higher potential.
  
  
• We can invest in real estate, but immediate liquidity and the local market, as it is, still give retail investors the ability to liquidate their portfolios quickly. Romania remains a market where dividends are still high, around 7–8%, which is attractive — especially in the fight against inflation.
  
  
• From what we see, the deposit base continues to grow, which means people remain drawn to passive choices. At the same time, we have double-digit growth in onboarding.
  
  
• It’s easy for us to say this money is coming from others — from our competitors. Looking at the economy overall, there’s a 3% to 5% advance in alternative assets, which should also lead to growth in the stock of deposits. The flow into funds is relatively small — we’re talking 5–6 billion lei per year — not enough to significantly affect total deposits. The fact we’re now seeing a pick-up, a normalisation, gives the impression that a lot of money is piling up.
  
  
• My fear is we worry too much about the capital market. Imagine we have a war next door, another one a bit further away, geopolitical instability, inflation. I wonder what happens when things calm down. What we’re seeing is that any negative event no longer even moves the oil price. I believe we’re on a positive wave, and we should ride that wave from an investment perspective. We have a strong horse pulling.
  
  

Oana Ilaș, Deputy CEO, Retail Banking:

• We’re no longer talking just about banking products per se, but about solving people’s needs where they are — whether that’s bancassurance, eSIMs, travel insurance, an easy way to pay their bills, or tools to connect small groups — parents, children, friends — with one another. I think the retail landscape has changed a lot and brings many opportunities.
  
  
• Retail still has room to attract new customers, and here our conscious choice to remain a universal bank matters a great deal, even if that hasn’t always been the easiest option. It means serving all customer segments and addressing very diverse needs, including cash services. For us, this diversity is a major opportunity. We have roughly 5 million retail customers and continue to grow month by month.
  
  
• I believe financial inclusion in Romania is still below potential, which means there are significant opportunities for growth, including by bringing Romanians in the diaspora into the fold. We can attract new customers to the extent the ecosystem we’re building addresses their needs in practical ways and offers relevant, easy-to-use services. That’s why one of our priorities has been to constantly develop and improve this ecosystem.
  
  
• Loan demand held up well in the first part of 2026, with a stronger appetite for consumer loans. I think this behaviour also reflects Romanians’ desire to maintain a certain lifestyle, even in a context where purchasing power is under pressure. A foreign economist recently noted that Romanians continue to use credit cards or consumer loans to offset the fall in real wages. At the same time, mortgages continued to perform well.
  
  
• Loans matter a lot in retail banking, but the reality is that, out of roughly 5 million clients, only 1.2–1.3 million have a credit product — of any kind, or even several types. That’s why I firmly believe the fundamental relationship with the client must be built first and foremost on experience. That’s where trust starts and where a functional, relevant and sustainable relationship is built, day by day.
  
  

Cătălin Caragea, Deputy CEO, Risk:

• Right now, when we talk about risks, there’s a common factor: politics. And I don’t mean the political class per se, but political risk as a whole. In this context, we can speak of two types: on the one hand, geopolitical risk, which we can’t control, and on the other, the domestic component — relating to the political class, governance and institutions.
  
  
• Political risk is more of a trigger event than a risk in the classic sense, and it affects several risk categories, especially credit risk.
  
  
• Funding risk can be affected immediately in the event of a downgrade, which is a significant risk. When the cost of funding rises, it shows up in higher prices — not just in the cost of credit, but generally across all costs.
  
  
• There isn’t a sector we say we won’t finance, except those with reputational risk. If I were to mention sectors that warrant closer attention, they’re the usual suspects. Construction is one that requires more attention, but in a developing economy you can’t grow without construction.
  
  
• The difference versus 10 years ago is that the civil engineering side has diversified. A decade ago we were focused primarily on road infrastructure; now we’re also looking at railways, hospitals, energy and agriculture. In construction it matters how and what you finance. You don’t start financing speculative builds, concealed projects or real estate lending disguised as construction.
  
  
• Agriculture is essential for Romania, even if it accounts for 2.5% of GDP. Romania is the fifth-largest country by area. We need to look at the entire chain. We have subsistence agriculture because the investment side is missing. When agriculture is mostly smallholder farming, fragmented and so on, you can’t have commercial-scale agriculture.
  
  
• I’d say these two are strategically important segments for Romania, but they’re also a bit shaky, so they require greater attention from banks when financing. And a few sectors have now come into focus that are dependent on energy prices and can be affected by the conflict in the Middle East — transport, logistics and perhaps manufacturing, which is energy-intensive.
  
  
• We have enormous untapped potential. If everyone at the table — politics, the authorities and the private sector — joined forces, we could be in a different place.