Consumer credit approaches 20bn-euro mark

9 nov 2008 Ziarul Financiar

Consumer credit made a record leap for this year, of over 5% in September, mainly fuelled by the dynamics of loans in foreign currency, which climbed almost 10%. Therefore, the volume of consumer credits, cumulated in RON and foreign currencies reached a sum equivalent to 72 billion RON (19.3 billion euros) in September, amid a slower annualised growth rate, against the first few months of 2008, thus ending six consecutive months of a slowdown. In December last year, consumer credit rose at an annual growth rate of 81%. The strategy adopted by banks in the spring of this year focused on attracting deposits, amid an increase in the reference interest rate, while lending to the population was expected to slow down, following the steps taken by the NBR (National Bank of Romania), analysts say. They also explain the slower annualised growth in the volume of credits by the fact that it is considered against an increasingly high base, the so-called "unfavourable base effect". "The slowdown of loans can in part be explained by the base effect, but reasons also include the higher level of consumer saturation and the tougher, more prudent banking regulations taken, in a globally sensitive context," said Florian Libocor, chief-economist of BRD-SocGen.