UniCredit Tiriac Bank, the Romanian unit of Italian banking group UniCredit, plans to advertise its services with billboards in Romanian on Bulgaria's Black Sea soast, daily Adevarul reported on Monday.

Bulgaria's seaside resorts became a hit summer destination for Romanian tourists last year and the trend is expected to grow this year.

"We plan to put billboards right on the beaches next to the hotels in the resorts preferred by Romanina tourists, namely Balchik and Golden Sands," the Romanian daily quoted Mihaela Cruceru, the head of the bank's ad agency Headvertising, as saying.

With every second car on Bulgaria's seaside sporting Romanian number plates, there is an opportunity for the bank to target Romanian customers abroad, the agency's creative director Serban Alexandrescu said.

The bank was created earlier this month after the merger of UniCredit's two units in the country UniCredit Romania and HVB Bank Tiriac, itself the result of the merger between German HVB Bank Romani and Tiriac Bank, founded by Romania's former tennis great turned businessman, Ion Tiriac. It is the fourth biggest lender in the country of 22 million.

The Italian group is the leading financial institution in Bulgaria, merging its three units under the name UniCredit Bulbank.

The two countries joined the European Union together in January.

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