Bankers teach clients to borrow in lei by making FX loans more expensive
Autor:
Ciprian Botea
22.05.2011
Bankers have radically changed consumer loan prices after the shock of leu depreciation of 2008-2009, which reminded them the FX risk is not just in books, and at present leu-denominated unsecured loans are cheaper than foreign currency-denominated ones.
Interest rates for leu-denominated consumer loans have come to
be as much as two percentage points lower than those for similar
euro-denominated ones, which means monthly savings of several tens
of lei for a EUR5,000 (RON20,000) loan. Several banks have even
gone to the extreme and are selling only leu-denominated unsecured
loans.
"Banks have understood that foreign currency risk is important and they'd better include this cost in the risk margin than leave the decision up to clients," comments financial analyst Aurelian Dochia.
Offers are now completely different from those of boom years, when bankers used to lure clients with very cheap foreign currency-denominated loans, inclusively for small sums.