The average interest on euro loans, on the other hand, even though higher than in the previous month, remained at less than 5%. The interest hike is because bankers stopped borrowing at a high cost from the market and therefore their appetite for funding the real economy diminished.
Retail loans, on the other hand, continued to drop in price in the first month of the year, with the average interest reaching 12.2% a year for leu loans and 4.3% a year for euros. Interests on leu loans are higher than last spring, though, when interbank funding costs had reached record lows, while the cost of euro loans is at an all-time low thus driving customers to take the risk of a foreign currency loan for a lower monthly installment.
The interest gap between leu and euro loans is now at the last two years’ high, about eight percent, but should stabilize at a somewhat lower level.
The ROBOR rate used in the calculation of the leu loan cost has been declining in the past few weeks, and is now at 5% a year, because of the improvement of liquidity on the market, while the EURIBOR used to calculate euro loan costs is already at record lows and could start rising again.
Lending in euros might stop as local banks are finding it harder and harder to get funding from abroad and have to compete with high interests to raise foreign currency from customers.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)