Lending activity remains fragile in January, after a 3 pct drop in 2014

The decline recorded last year in terms of new loans has continued over January 2015, shows the latest report provided by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) which indicates a 0.3 percent decrease in non-governmental loans compared to December 2014 and a 3.8 percent drop compared to the same month in 2014.

Loans granted by credit institutions to households and companies in Romania at end-January 2015 came to nearly 210.4 billion lei, of which RON-denominated loans totalled 91.7 billion lei and forex loans amounted to about 118.7 billion lei.

While RON-denominated loans went up 6.7 percent year-on-year (6.2 percent in real terms) on the back of the 16.3 percent hike (15.8 percent in real terms) in household loans, foreign currency-denominated loans expressed in RON fell by 10.6 percent and by 9.5 percent when expressed in EUR.

At the same time, in December 2014, RON-denominated loans declined by 0.5 percent (down 0.9 percent in real terms), whereas foreign currency-denominated loans expressed in RON contracted by 0.2 percent, but rose by 0.7 percent when expressed in EUR.

As regards deposits, there was a 1 percent fall-off in January 2015 versus the previous month, while they increased by 7 percent compared to January 2014. Hence, deposits of non-government resident customers added up to 230.2 billion lei

Household deposits in domestic currency rose by 1 percent against end-December 2014 (+6.4 pct y-o-y) , while corporate deposits decreased by 5.9 percent (+10.8 pct y-o-y).

Forex-denominated deposits of resident households and corporates expressed in RON advanced 1.1 percent compared to December 2014 (+4.6 pct y-o-y): household forex deposits grew by 0.5 percent (+4.8 pct Y-o-y) when expressed in domestic currency and forex deposits of companies rose by 2.2 percent (4.1 pct y-o-y) when expressed in RON, indicates the BNR report.