The two parties reached an agreement on Friday and Kredyt Inkaso has three months to pay the price of the deal. UniCredit sold the NPL at a 92% discount. Debt collector Kredyt Inkaso, a subsidiary of the Polish group by the same name, entered Romania in early 2013 and its NPL portfolio has grown to about EUR1 billion since, including the latest deal.
The NPL UniCredit put up for sale were loans granted to small and medium-sized companies, a segment that was badly hurt by the crisis. Nine months into the year, UniCredit, the fifth largest lender in Romania, had a 16.4% non-performing loan ratio, above the system average.
Banks continued to clean up their balance sheets this year, and some estimates point to the market being flooded by a new wave of NPL. Eurobank, the Greek group that holds Bancpost and a consumer finance unit in Romania, and Intesa San Paolo Bank were among the banks that prepared to sell NPL. Other banks would like to sell their NPL, too.
The lenders started selling NPL after Romania’s central bank instructed them to do so some cleanup to be able to resume lending. Another factor is the asset quality review tests conducted in Europe, which affect the parent banks.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)