The number of reports is about 200,000 higher than in the entire 2012.
“In 2013, as in all the other years since the Credit Bureau has been in operation, loan demand fluctuated. The biggest month in this regard was October (more than 10% over the monthly average of 2013), which is also true for October 2012,” said Serban Epure, the general manager of the Credit Bureau.
“Which is why I cannot draw a clear conclusion about the reasons. It may be the central bank measures (the resumption of the monetary policy relaxation cycle), it may be a post-holiday behavior of consumers.”
Out of the 7.8 million reports issued by the institution, 5.2 million were requested to check on potential clients, 400,000 more than in the year-ago period.
As banks check each client when reviewing their loan application, the 5 million reports requested by banks for potential clients closely reflect the number of loan applications.
The Credit Bureau received about 500,000 queries about potential clients every month this year on average, 16% more than in 2012.
The number of queries about potential clients in October stood at more than 550,000, almost as many as during the economic boom years. Even though the number of queries went up, the amount due remained at 100 billion lei (EUR22.4 billion).
The general manager of the Credit Bureau says that October was a good month in terms of loans granted to consumers, which went up by some RON3 billion, the highest monthly increase of 2013.
In all, the number of reports issued by the Credit Bureau stood at more than 700,000 on average every month, as bankers were more concerned about the situation of their clients and requested more portfolio monitoring reports.
A total of 2.8 million monitoring reports were issued in the first eleven months, 27% more than in January-November 2012. Banks started to closely monitor their clients during the crisis using such reports, regardless of whether the client pays on time or not. (EUR1=RON4.4552)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)