Bankers are sitting on a mountain of cash that they prefer tokeep in the treasury of the National Bank at an interest rate of 3%a year because, according to them, they have no one to grant loansto despite the interest rate cuts.
Because they were left with unused money, in March they set upvery short term deposits worth 39.5 billion RON (8.75 billioneuros), up 63% against the previous month and three times more thanin the similar period of last year. The interest rate offered tobanks in March was 3% a year, with the exception of the last twodays of the month, when it fell to 2.5% a year.
In the same period, the central bank did not grant anyshort-term credit facility and organised one single repo auction,with banks borrowing 627 million RON over one week. In fact, banksdid not resort at all to the credit facility offered by the NBR,which indicates that liquidity problems have disappeared.
The National Bank thus runs the risk of becoming a net debtor tothe banking system once again, which would diminish effectivenessof monetary policy decisions.
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