Pekao on route to merge with Alior – Reuters

Bank Pekao will likely move forward on a merger with Alior Bank, according to two confidential sources cited by Reuters. In late February, Pekao’s CEO Michał Krupiński stated he believed that analysis for a possible merger with Alior Bank would be completed by the end of Q2. Reuters said that the merger would further strengthen consolidation trends in the Polish banking sector, which have accelerated in the past few years, as smaller banks have been having problems competing amidst lower interest rates and keeping up with the increased capital requirements. Bank Pekao is one of the biggest lenders in CEE, it has been quoted on the WSE since 1998. Alior Bank was launched in 2008 and debuted on the stock exchange in December 2012. At the end of 2017, Alior’s assets stood at PLN 69.5 billion. Both banks are state-controlled.