Raiffeisen joins growing Romanian structured products market

Raiffeisen lists its first certificates on the Bucharest Stock Exchange

Raiffeisen debuts in Romania

Raiffeisen Centrobank has joined the young but growing Romanian structured products market with listings on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE).

Erste Bank listed the first Romanian structured products in July, with the launch of certificates based on equities and commodities. Erste has sold €2.5 million of these products so far, mainly to retail investors through its branches and brokers.

Now Raiffeisen is listing nine certificates on the BSE, tracking the S&P 500, Eurostoxx 50, ROTX (which incorporates stocks from the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the Vienna Stock Exchange), and Dax indexes, as well as gold and Brent Crude Oil.

"One of our strategies over the past couple of years has been to expand into eastern Europe, and now we are moving into south-eastern European countries because we believe the whole region is very interesting," says Stefan Neubauer, senior sales director for central and eastern Europe, equities and derivatives at Raiffeisen in Vienna.

"The Romanian market seemed to be interesting as well so we have listed our certificates there. Our experiences from the other central European exchanges have been successful and we are confident that this will also be a successful product type," Neubauer says.