“The central bank will likely continue its monetary easing into 2014 as well and, considering a potential limitation of monetary stimuli on the interbank market, we expect the future of the domestic lending will be represented by leu-denominated loans,” BCR chief analyst Eugen Sinca said in a statement.
BCR expects leu-denominated loans will exceed 50% of total lending in Romania in the next few years, from 37% of total currently.
Romania’s central bank earlier this month lowered its monetary policy rate by 50 basis points to a new record low of 4.5% a year, exceeding market expectations of a 25 basis points cut.
The bank’s chief Mugur Isarescu said his institution would do “everything possible” to help narrow the gap between interest rates on domestic and foreign currency loans.