Instead of going down to help economy, interests on RON loans are going up

Right when the economy needs encouragement more than ever, interests rates on RON loans are not only not going down, but have even started to go up.

Compared with the beginning of May, the three and six month ROBOR rates used as reference for RON lending went up by more than one percent in June, reaching 7 - 7.5% a year and stayed there in the first half of July, as well, when many banks update the cost of loans tied to the monetary market indices.

Anyway, some banks only update the reference every six months. BCR, the biggest lender by assets, used the 10.65% ROBOR three-month index published by the National Bank of Romania (NBR) on December 31, 2009 in June. Others have already increased interest rates on RON loans in June.

After two years of discussing the lending reboot to no avail, the only ones pressuring for it are the Romanian entrepreneurs, who are also the most dependant on the loans from banks.