Raiffeisen Bank buys trader Akcenta CZ

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has agreed to purchase the Czech payment institution Akcenta CZ. According to the proposed ownership structure, RBI will acquire 70 percent of the Accents and the remaining 30 percent will be acquired by its Czech subsidiary Raiffeisenbank. The transaction price was not specified and is subject to regulatory approval. It is expected to be closed by the end of May this year.

The acquisition is part of RBI's strategic goal of becoming a leader in currency trading in Central and Eastern Europe, the bank said. While approximately 75 percent of the foreign exchange market in Central and Eastern Europe is served by banks, the remaining 25 percent is covered by non-bank providers such as Akcenta.

Akcenta will work closely with the business component of RBI's foreign exchange and payment transactions, but the company will not be integrated into RBI, the bank added.

"The acquisition fits perfectly into our strategy, whether in terms of business expansion or our path to digitization using the experience of a successful progressive market player," said Łukasz Januszewski, Member of the Board of Management of RBI. The advantage will be a combination of an individual approach on the part of the bank in combination with easy operation, which they are used to with Akcenta, "added Igor Vida, CEO of Raiffeisenbank.

Since 1997, Akcenta has been offering foreign payment and foreign exchange operations, including hedging, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Germany, where it serves 43,000 clients, of which more than 20,000 in the Czech Republic. At the end of 2020, the company had assets of EUR 93 million (approximately CZK 2.4 billion) and during that year it carried out transactions for its clients in the total amount of almost seven billion euros (CZK 180 billion).

Raiffeisenbank has been providing banking services in the Czech Republic since 1993. It is the fifth largest and systemically important domestic bank. It has about 130 branches and client centers in the Czech Republic. The majority shareholder is the Austrian Raiffeisen Bank International.

Source: CTK and Raiffeisenbank