Alior enters Poland
The bank offers "overnight" deposits, the first such service on the Polish market. An overnight deposit is where half the money from clients' current accounts is transfered in the evening to a savings deposit where it remains during the night, generating interest. The money is transferred back to clients' current accounts in the morning with interest added.
In the area of consumer loans, though, the bank's offer is less attractive - it charges up to 18 percent interest, which may not be competitive compared to other banks.
By the end of the month, the bank will have opened 80 outlets in the country and eight business customer service centers. Alior plans to increase the number of outlets to 200 and open 400 partner outlets in the future.
In four years' time, Alior Bank wants to have one million clients and between two to four percent of the Polish banking market.
Alior Bank is owned by Italian group Carlo Tassara, an investment company with a €10 billion fortune which has spent zł.1.5 billion on Alior. Carlo Tassara does not operate banks in any other country, but is an owner of shares in some Italian banks (among them Intesa and UBI).
"The success of the Alior Bank will not be as spectacular as it expected," Michał Macierzyński, an analyst from Bankier.pl told WBJ. "Although its account offer may generate interest from clients, the main danger is that the bank does not have its own deposit base and lacks foreign investors. Carlo Tassara group has problems due to the financial crisis and Alior Bank is unknown, so there will be a problem gaining investors," said Macierzyński.
