Deloitte’s “Deleveraging Europe 2015-2016 Survey” highlighted that Romania counts among the most active countries in the region when it comes to the non-performing loans market (“NPLs”), with estimated sales (including transactions ongoing at the end of the year) of 2.5 billion EUR last year. According to the Survey, a number of transactions initiated in late 2015 remain ongoing and will be a key driver for 2016 market trend. However, failed deals are not helping the market develop and investors retain a healthy skepticism regarding the likelihood of deals completing. Thus, establishing a servicing platform for secured portfolios is a key concern for many international investors.

Local courier services firm Sprint Curier announced a strategic partnership with Urgent Cargus. Within this partnership, starting the 11th of April, the internal deliveries in Romania will be taken over by Urgent Cargus, while Sprint Curier will focus on international deliveries. The announcement only says the two companies joined forces to provide clients with an extensive delivery network and a better pickup process and delivery of parcels, not saying if the company was acquired by Urgent Cargus.

Polish Innova Capital Investments Fund has sold the entire shares package of Provus Group (altogether with Provus Service Provider, Romcard and Supercard Solutions & Services), the biggest payment processing center in Romania and one of the largest in Europe to German services supplier Wirecard, for 32 million EUR.

With a total of 114 employees, Provus is Romania’s leading payment processing and technological service provider. The payment provider supports companies in outsourcing acquiring and card processing, e-commerce payment transactions and point-of-sale (POS) operations. Its customer base includes major Romanian banks in addition to significant telecommunications and retail players. In addition, Provus has worked with the Romanian government in the digitisation of health and payment cards. Provus was set up in 2001 and ever since it has been present on the Romanian market with card processing transactions, card personalization, as well as retail services. The group has 114 employees and over time, it has served clients like Sensiblu, MOL Romania, Cora Profi, Metro Cash&Carry Romania, but also local branches of OTP, Unicredit, and Societe Generale.

The largest residential complex in the north of the capital will continue to expand, along this year. The developer of the complex, turkish owned Opus Development announced that it will further invest about 20 million euros in Cosmopolis, for the build of 500 new housing, infrastructure and a shopping center.