Lei loans "could be more convenient"

Romanian Commercial Banks’ spokesmen claim that those who have loans in lei or who intend to have such a loan in the future should have reasons to be satisfied with it.

On Tuesday, Radu Graţian Gheţea, the President of the Romanian Bank Association, said that it is expected to decrease costs for loans in lei.

However, as usually, good news is followed by bad news as Radu Graţian Gheţea foresees that the value of currency loans will increase.

Therefore, it seems that the situation will balance out which means that both lei and euro credits interest rates will be very close in the next eighteen months.

"Borrowers could prefer loans in lei against currency loans as interest rates will equal in about eighteen months", the President of the Romanian Bank Association Radu Graţian Gheţea said.

"As for the interests on deposits we draw, it is likely to be pretty hard to get close to the EU zone but as for the assets, for which interest indexing is made by Euribor that is also explicitly ruled by the European Union about how using interest rates, at least when working with people; I believe that this trend of increasing interest rates on euro loans and of decreasing interest rates on lei loans will lead to approximately equal the interest rates in about eighteen months", Radu Graţian Gheţea said.

Forecasters do not think that is a good idea to equal the interest values on credits in lei with those on currency loans.

"It would be a piece of news that I wouldn’t really take for good regarding the leu or the local issues. Of course, the fact that lei interest rates will decrease and that euro interest rates will increase is not a really good news because in this very moment, the both pressure on euro and the inflation in the Euro zone which could lead to increasing both the interest rates cannot affect Romania", the forecaster Dan Suciu declared.

Lately, during the two year economic churn, the European Central Bank has artificially kept the Euribor interest at very low rates and the President of the Romanian Banks Association foresees that its level will get to about four or six per cent as registered in 2007.

Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University