Moreover, ING Bank has recently announced it will stop paying interest for any amount above RON1 million in savings accounts and will pay less, 1.75% per annum, for anything below as of March.
Mutual funds posted yields of up to 10.6% in 2014, with the top performer being balanced fund Carpatica Global.
As mutual funds do not have a guaranteed profit and their performance varies with the financial instruments they invest in (bonds or stocks), the record amount that they raised in 2014 shows that Romanians are more willing to take some risks in exchange for higher profits from their savings.
“Keeping all or most of one’s savings in bank deposits will gradually become history, while the diversified investment portfolio will become a necessity, as well as an opportunity given the low interests and low inflation,” said Dragos Neacsu, chairman of the asset manager Erste Asset Management, the largest such company, in charge of RON8.27 billion assets.
Over 309,000 investors keep their savings in mutual funds, 38,000 more than in 2013. The amount mutual funds raised in 2014 is one billion lei higher than the net inflows of 2013. Therefore mutual funds reached record net assets of RON18.28 billion on December 31, 2014, 40% higher than in 2013, according to the Fund Managers Association (AAF) data.
Most of the investments went towards low risk funds, more precisely bond funds, which manage RON8.3 billion assets, 30% more than in 2013. Bond fond yields stood at 5.6% on average last year, with ING IR Bond posting the highest yield of all, 8.7%. Equity funds had an average yield of 2% last year, while balanced funds an about 1% average yield.
Conservative funds and euro-denominated funds reached over RON9.1 billion assets last year, 50% more than in 2013, according to AAF.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)