The Financial Services Association of Romania (ALB) and the Council of Banking Employers of Romania (CPBR) agreed to establish the country’s first employers’ federation in the field of financial services in order to ensure a greater representation of their members and employees, said CPBR in a statement. 

The employers’ federation, which is yet to be legally established at the beginning of next year, aims at eventually joining one of the main employers’ confederations in Romania in order to gain appropriate representation as part of the tripartite dialogue with the government and the trade unions, in accordance with the Law of Social Dialogue.

As ALB and CPBR already share common principles, in line with the similar services they offer, they are also interested to contribute together to future projects on multiple topics such as ethics, transparency, legislation, financial education, anti-fraud policies and other such. CPBR and ALB shall retain their distinctiveness within the federation, each of them holding equal rights.

“We decided to establish this employers’ federation because we believe that together we can be stronger not only as concerns our convergent interests, but also to the advantage of the financial services market in Romania and those of our clients,” said Steven van Groningen (pictured), the President of the CPBR’s Board of Directors. “I’m glad I can make this announcement especially today, when ALB celebrates 10 years since its establishment.”

“We wish to also tackle together the often complex issues related to our consumers, including on the prudentiality and regulation fronts,” Felix Daniliuc, ALB’s President explained. “In addition, in the context of the evolution of European regulations, as we share the same pool of consumers, we must be able to also have a common voice.”

CPBR, which was founded in April 2014, has Banca Comerciala Romana, BRD - Groupe Societe Generale, Raiffeisen Bank, UniCredit-Tiriac Bank, ING Bank Romania and Volksbank Romania as its member banks. The six banks together own about half of total assets in Romania’s banking system, while their employees make more than a third of all employees in the country’s banking sector.