Lending revival: BCR collects 75,000 consumer loan applications in 6 weeks

9 mai 2011 Autor: Razvan Voican

BCR, the biggest bank on the Romanian market, has seen daily applications for consumer loans double in the six weeks since launching a campaign to promote leu-denominated funding with a fixed 12.5 % a year interest rate and a maximum deadline of 10 years, to 2,000-2,500 applications, totalling around 75,000, says Dominic Bruynseels, the bank's CEO.

"We have been pleasantly surprised by the demand we have recorded for this product and we apologise to clients who have to wait for an answer longer than a day, as we promise in the advert. The BCR has been perceived in the past few years as being outside the consumer lending market, but now we want to show that we are ready to lend money through this type of products, as well."

The head of the BCR specifies that around 35% of new loan volumes are accounted for by refinancing, but hopes this significant demand will also be reflected in an increase in the volume of retail loans, a segment that continued on a downward trend in the first quarter.

On the segment of mortgage loans, the BCR is awaiting approval of the central bank to join the fourth edition of the First Home scheme.