High interest rates, gloomy outlook stifle bank lending in Romania

High interest rates, gloomy outlook stifle bank lending in Romania

/ bne IntelliNews

By bne IntelliNews September 26, 2023

The stock of bank loans to the non-government sector in Romania increased by 5.5% y/y to RON378.8bn (€76.36bn) at the end of August, the National Bank of Romania announced.

After it reached 27.9% of GDP in August 2022, up from 26.3% in August 2019 before the COVID-19 crisis (supported by government subsidies to corporate lending mainly), financial intermediation in Romania plunged to 25.3% in August 2023 amid sluggish lending and high inflation.

The advance was mainly driven by forex lending (+19.0% y/y to RON120.5bn) while the stock of local currency loans edged up by only 0.2% y/y to RON258.3bn, roughly two-thirds of the total.

By the main types of customers and currency, lending to households (predominantly in local currency) edged up insignificantly by 0.2% y/y to RON172.3bn, the stock of loans to non-financial corporations advanced more significantly by 10.1% y/y (driven by the 28.3% y/y advance of forex lending) to RON189.4bn and the loans to financial non-bank corporations surged by 19.8% y/y to a still small RON17.1bn.

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