Banks continue to increase interest spreads

The spread between RON-denominated interest rates on the individual clients' existing loans and deposits continued to climb by half a percentage point in the first quarter of the year, to 8.14%, with bankers seeking to cover their costs over the period during which they are not granting new loans, reveal data of the NBR (National Bank of Romania). The interest rate margin remains at over 5% for RON-denominated loans and deposits.
Under the circumstances, the number of loan applicants has nearly halved compared with the 2008 peak, with the only segments still afloat being credit cards and mortgage loans.
Bankers are keeping spreads up in order to have better cost coverage, with operating costs falling to 56.7% of revenues in March, compared with 60.7% in December, and a little lower than the level of the similar period of last year. The reduced weight of operating costs also comes amid the around 4,000 redundancies made in the banking system in the past year, and the closure of tens of branches.
Interests on existing loans fell by half a percentage point in the first three months of the year, while deposit interest rates fell by over a percentage point.