“We are trying within the next three, four years to increase the number of branches,” executive director Sotos Zackheos said in a telephone interview today.

He said the establishment of new branches as early as in 2015, mainly in Nicosia and Limassol, Cyprus’s second largest town with a large Russian community, will also create new jobs, Zackheos, a former official at the Cypriot ministry of foreign affairssaid.

The lender, which together with Bank of Cyprus, Hellenic Bank and Cooperative Central Bank is one of Cyprus’s four systemic banks supervised by the European Central Bank, offered loans so far to pharmaceutical, food and natural gas industries and is now ready to consider other sectors, the former diplomat said. He added that that ECB representatives were present at a board of directors meeting last week.

“Despite the haircut, foreign investors have not given up on us and I believe that they will come back in masses,” he said in reference to the terms of Cyprus’s March 2013 bailout which provided for the resolution of Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and the recapitalisation of Bank of Cyprus with almost half of uninsured deposits. Depositors at Laiki, lost all their deposits in excess of €100,000.

Source: Cyprus Mail