Brief History

Raiffeisen Zentralbank Öesterreich (RZB) presence in Romania started back in 1994 by opening a representative office in Bucharest. In 1998, the representative office was transformed into a fully operational subsidiary of RZB focused on corporate banking business.
Meanwhile, one of the largest state-owned Romanian banks - Banca Agricola - was in a difficult financial situation. Due to the measures taken by the Romanian authorities – such as transforming the bad loans into public debt – the bank was prepared for privatisation in 2000.

In February 2001, Austria’s RZB together with the Romanian-American Enterprise Fund (RAEF) expressed their interest to acquire the majority stake in Banca Agricola. The agreement was signed by the end of July 2002.

The gable cross is the distinctive trademark of Raiffeisen. But what does it mean?
In former times, it was attached to the gable of a house to protect its occupants from all types of danger. The Raiffeisen organisation has adopted this symbol of protection as its trademark, because the members protect one another from economic dangers by collaborating in the form of cooperation.