Vienna, 4 April 2012

Global Finance: Raiffeisen “Best Bank in Central and Eastern Europe”

• Raiffeisen Bank International receives CEE award for the sixth time in a row
• “Best Bank” awards also go to five subsidiaries in Serbia, Romania, Albania, Belarus and Slovakia

Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) has been awarded the title “Best Bank in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)” for the sixth time in a row in the competition “World’s Best Banks in Developed and Emerging Markets” organised by the renowned financial magazine “Global Finance”. In total, RBI has won this prestigious distinction eight times in nine years.

At the same time, the RBI subsidiaries Raiffeisen banka a.d. in Serbia, Raiffeisen Bank S.A. in Romania, Raiffeisen Bank Sh.a. in Albania, Priorbank JSC in Belarus, and Tatra banka, a.s. in Slovakia were appreciated as “Best Bank” in their respective markets.

“Our main concern is to provide our customers the best service in all our markets. The fact that we have won the title ‘Best Bank in CEE’ for the sixth time in a row shows that we have always rendered our services, even in times of global financial crisis,” said a pleased Herbert Stepic, CEO of RBI.

“This important award represents firm evidence of the success achieved by Raiffeisen banka in Serbia in all business segments in 2011. The excellent business results come from our well-balanced approach, focussing on quality and understanding the changing needs of our clients, especially in a challenging business environment”, said Oliver Roegl, Chairman of the Managing Board of Raiffeisen banka.

“We remain in an unusually challenging environment for banks and their customers,” said the publisher of Global Finance, Joseph D. Giarraputo. “More than ever, customers are demanding superior competence from their banking partners. The selected banks are the ones best providing that competence.”

The magazine Global Finance will issue a full report on its Best Bank selections in its May issue.

Sustained success

RBI is one of the leading commercial and investment banks for the top 1,000 commercial customers in Austria and also one of the leading universal banks in CEE, where it has a dense network of subsidiaries, leasing companies and a series of specialised financial services companies in 17 markets. The parent of RBI, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG (RZB), is the lead institute of the Raiffeisen Banking Group Austria (RBG), the third-largest banking group in the country.

Raiffeisen banka in Serbia has already been selected best bank in the country by Global Finance for the eighth time. The bank had a balance sheet total of around €2.2 billion at the end of 2011 and is the fifth-largest bank in the country. It has more than 85 business outlets attending around 508,000 customers.