Corporate cash flow problems less serious in September

Companies had more money in their accounts in September so that the number of cases when banks were unable to cover the cheques or promissory notes they used was down compared with the previous month.

Analysts, however, warn that one cannot talk about a trend yet and even expect the situation to get worse over the coming months.

The amounts of the declined payments with debt instruments (promissory notes, cheques and bills of exchange) went down unexpectedly by more than 150 million RON (some 36 million euros) in September, compared with the record level of over 900 million-RON in the previous month, NBR data reveal.

The value of the debt instruments involved in declined transactions went down to 779.4 million RON, considering declined bills of exchange fell by more than 320 million RON.

Debt collection specialists had previously anticipated that the number of declined payments could exceed one billion RON in September as a result of the worsening economic situation.

Analysts, however, say that this decline is temporary given that the economy will not recover from the recession any sooner than the second half of next year.

"This simply happened. Normally the value of the amounts of declined payments will resume growth, because we are talking an arrearage here that cannot be mended even by banks," said Dragos Cabat, member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA Romania).

At the same time, the number of declined payment instruments was slightly up to 38,825 cases, contributing to the decline of the average value per transaction from more than 24,000 RON in August to some 20,000 RON in September. The decline in the average value of transactions might indicate bigger cash flow problems for small and medium-sized companies.

On the other hand, the arrearage in the economy shows in the amount of transactions involving cheques, where the value of declined payments tripled in September despite a 13% decline in the number of bounced cheques.