Banks: Time for the smaller cities

Banks: Time for the smaller cities
I talk with several bankers every day. It is my job to find for them commercial spaces around the country, so as to open there new branches. Except the biggest names, with hundreds of business units already functioning, the other ones keep searching in daily basis. And 2008 is the year that they have in plan to cover even the cities with population under 100.000 citizens, sometimes even around 50.000, while they open their second or third unit in cities where they are already established.
As banks are not welfare institutions, it seems that they understand something that most of the businessmen in Romania do not see: The strong potential of Romanian cities, even the smaller ones. Ok, no one said neither Focsani nor Pitesti can become the center of business in this country. But until the end of the year all the cities like Focsani are projected to have triple more bank branches than today, while in cities like Pitesti there will be more units for each bank.
Isn’t it impressive if we compare it with the reality of 2004, when most of the cities had just the 3 – 4 basic well known names? Can you also believe that although more than 2.000 bank branches have opened the last 3 years, we can barely find one or two so as to purchase (for myself or a client)?