Article at a glance:

Eastern European banking matures

Eastern Europe's fledgling market economies have offered retail banks higher revenue and profit growth than they can find in the West. But while the region will continue to present attractive growth opportunities in the next decade, mounting competition and economic stabilization will make it difficult to match this early success.

The take-away

To succeed, banks in Eastern Europe must become more economically efficient while capturing newly affluent customers who require loans rather than asset-management services and handling risk in an environment where credit histories are in short supply.

This article is part of a package on banking in emerging markets. The package also includes "Banking in the Gulf States" and "Strengthening Turkish banking."