March came with the first signs of a rebound for retail lending, after the collapse of the market in winter. Clients are inquiring about loans again, while banks are announcing the first significant interest rate cuts for new credits.
Serban Epure, head of the Credit Bureau – the institution that commercial banks set up to manage information about repayment of retail loans, says that March came with a significant increase in business.
The number of Credit Bureau database queries from partner banks rose to 443,000 in March, compared with 309,000 in February. This was the first time when the volume rose significantly, after the number of queries had been going down month by month from October through January. The number of queries in February was just a little higher than in January.
When granting a loan, banks query the database of the Credit Bureau to find out whether that particular customer has a other loans or even past due loans that they did not state. As a result, the number of queries provides a good approximation of the number of loan applications reviewed by partner banks.
Still, even if banks have requested information about more clients in March than they did in February, compared with March last year, the number of queries is more than 30% lower.
Bankers also note an improvement in the sales of new loans in March, though volumes remain much smaller than last spring.
"It will probably be a year before sales exceed monthly loan repayments. Although sales are increasing month by month, the volume trend will probably be negative," says Sorin Mititelu, manager of the Retail Products and Business Development department of BCR, the largest bank in the system.
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