| Hypovereinsbank: raised its profile in buying Bank Austria |
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With market share at a premium in central and eastern Europe's emerging economies, some banks are looking farther afield for ways to gain scale. Take Germany's Hypovereinsbank, which in 2000 boosted its regional profile with the purchase of an Austrian bank.
In acquiring Vienna-based Bank Austria/Creditanstalt for e8 billion, Hypovereinsbank not only captured a considerable chunk of the banking market in an EU neighbour. It also reshaped the competitive landscape in five more countries to the east.
"The fact that they have merged has presented us with a major new competitive threat," says the Warsaw-based CEO of a western-owned Polish bank. "We were bigger than either of them prior to the merger. Now we are looking up at them. It shows just how sensitive Poland is to events in other markets."