Over 500 credit brokers arrange approximately 5% of the overall volume of loans granted by banks, with the domestic banking brokerage industry lagging far behind the European market, where as much as 70% of loans are obtained with the help of a broker.
A fledgling industry with over 100 firms whose core business to arrange loans, credit brokerage is a solution individuals, and to a lesser extent companies and legal entities, resort to.
"Legal entities prefer contracting loans directly from the banks they work with for current operations. The legal entities contacting us ask only for brokerage-related services - business plans, feasibility surveys, non-repayable financing projects (...)," stated Ciprian Iorga, CEO with Vertical Finance banking brokerage.
The peak periods for credit brokers are those before and after holidays.
Nevertheless, the increase in the number of customers is directly tied to territorial network expansion.
In the first six months of this year, the value of the loans arranged by Creditlink bank credit broker reached 13 million euros, with the total number of customers standing at 300.
"Since last year, volumes have witnessed considerable growth, but the shares in the total were almost unchanged: 10% consumer loans and 90% home equity loans," says Claudiu Bud, operations manager with Creditlink.
Home equity loans account for highest share of the total in the case of Vertical Finance, too, which in the first six months handled loans worth almost 950,000 euros.
"We have between 30 and 70 valid applications daily, complete files sent to banks. There's a positive answer for 92% of these," says Roxana Gavrila, a development manager with Credit Team.
The development pace of the bank loan brokerage industry will be a rapid one and will be largely conditioned by the development of the banking market, particularly by banks embracing "relaxed" lending conditions, say brokers.
"In Romania, we are far from market saturation and this type of services is just starting to gain popularity," says Gavrila.
For the next five years, the industry is estimated to weigh as much as 30% in the overall volume of loans granted by banks.
According to the representatives of BCR, which works with around 500 brokerages that handled up to 10% of the volume of loans released by the bank, a bank's collaboration with credit brokers bolsters the bank's sales force and implicitly the volume and number of granted loans.
The shortcomings are related to transferring a part of the bank's revenues from loans to the brokerage and additional efforts on the part of the bank in terms of professional training and marketing.
At present, there are 11 banks having credit brokers as sales partners.
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