Adrian Dumitriu, CFO Chimcomplex: “We cannot talk about financial education without digital skills”

“If banks do not adopt technologies that simplify customer relations faster, I think they will have problems attracting future customers. Despite the digitalization in Romania, I was surprised to see how long it takes to get a simple letter of guarantee with collateral cash for the company. We waited more than two weeks at a bank to get this simple document,” Adrian Dumitriu, CFO Chimcomplex said during the Financial Forum 2021 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

Banks still have a lot of investment to make in the direction of modernization. From the perspective of digital culture, Romania is on the last places in the EU. One in 5 Romanians has never had access to the internet, and less than a third of Romanians do not have basic digital skills.

We cannot talk about financial education without digital skills. Romania must make efforts in the field of financial education, but also in terms of digital skills.

We are taking steps in the direction of digitization. As a short story, I can tell you that the first computer used appeared in the UK in 1951 and had a major impact on a restaurant chain. With the help of the computer, the salaries for 30,000 employees were calculated. By manual processing, the operation takes 8 minutes for each employee, and the computer performs the operation in a second and a half. Digitization had as great an impact from the perspective of labour productivity as the emergence of mass production in the second industrial revolution.

The digital infrastructure is advanced, but we have lagged behind in terms of competencies at the country level.

We are in a unique moment from the perspective of the economic development potential. There are a lot of development opportunities, huge opportunities for the real economy, but also for the financial services sector. I am confident that the economy will begin to recover and that we will all have very good potential for future development. I am confident that Chimcomplex will continue to be an important player in the local chemical market, but also in the financial markets.

Chimcomplex, the largest chemical plant producing polyols in Eastern Europe, announces for 2020 a net profit of 95 million RON, with EBITDA of 257 million RON, representing 22 percent of turnover.

The results from 2020 and the forecast evolution for this year allowed the company to reduce the loans contracted for the Oltchim transaction to 110 million Euro. In December 2018, the company contracted on the London financial market a loan of 164 million Euro, which means that in just 2 years it repaid loans amounting to 54 million Euro from the initial balance.

Chimcomplex is the largest exporter with Romanian capital in the national economy. Direct sales outside Romania in 2020 were over 750 million RON  and the projection for 2021 provides for exports of over one billion RON. Expanding the portfolio of external clients allowed the company to compensate the negative impact of the sales on local level, where compared to the previous year there is a decrease of 25%.

The Diplomat Bucharest organized Financial Forum event in online format, on April 21,2021. The conference joined leaders spearheading digital initiatives in their organizations to offer insights into their digital transformation journey’s in fintech & banking, as well in capital markets and insurance.

The fast evolution of digital in all industries mirrors in the behaviours and innovations brought by banks,  financial institutions to meet the clients’ needs to abstain from overspending, navigate risks, and usually deal with their finances better. FinTech services and products are more and more designed for particular functions inside the financial ecosystem and customization is key to win more clients and portfolios.