Page 148 - Carte Falimentul BIR

exclusively through the BIR, the assets of the bank rising, at that time, to over
ROL 2,500 billion.

Also, BIR had set up its own insurance and reinsurance company - Provitas SA,
a transferable securities company - Interfinbrok Corporation SA, as well as, other
companies, like: security, value transport - Transval Corporation SA,
construction - BIR-Construct SA, trade - Investar International Holding SA, a
micro-clinic - Provita Medical SA, etc. The first private Romanian railway
company, CRTF SA, was also created by the BIR.

All the units of the bank were equipped with modern computing systems,
compatible with the year 2000, and the county units were equipped with satellite
communications, all the operations being carried out in real time.

Another important fact: the first ATMs were introduced in Romania by BIR, in
1995, operating at BIR - Bucharest branch, one for lei, and the second for US
dollars.

In January 2000, the BIR network operated with 1,860 employees (over 90% -
young people), covering the entire territory of Romania, and the number of
employees in all projects of the Ecumenical International Center counted over
4,500.

The International Bank of Religions has been very interested in lending to the
real economy, supporting small entrepreneurs and heavily investing in rural

development, mainly in agriculture, through its own "Rural Credit" Department,
with its own publication "The Romanian Peasant", and since 1995, in Târgovişte,
the symposium "Agriculture - our everyday bread" was held annually, with the
national participation of specialists in the field.

During the all the period of operation, the entire BIR's profit was over USD 25
million, paying to the Romanian State taxes of ROL 50 billion.

A Romanian idea destroyed by a group of interests

The story of the International Bank of Religions, its destruction - as a purely
Romanian idea - represents the drama of the destruction of the Romanian capital,
after the events of December 1989.

Not only banking specialists, but also those outside this system can understand
how big is the financial volume, how huge is the capital of the world's religions
and how special would have been the benefits of such a bank existence, here in
Romania, a country that has never known, historically speaking, inter-ethnic or
inter-religious conflicts.

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