Non-resident deposits fell by almost EUR900 million compared with June 2014.
June saw one of the fastest decline rates, EUR300 million, the most abrupt monthly decline since the spring of 2013. Mid-year data published by the central bank highlight the deleveraging phenomenon, which showed into a EUR2.3 billion aggregate decline in the past two years. Non-resident deposit volume reached a six-year low.
“Foreign groups no longer have enough money to meet the capital requirements, so they turned to these deposits and repatriated some of this money,” said economic analyst Dragos Cabat.
“One of the events that triggered this deleveraging process might be the Greek crisis. The downward trend of those deposits may slow down.”
Non-residents’ long-term deposits became the preferred form of support by foreign banks during the crisis, because this particular type of liabilities is not included among those for which minimum mandatory reserves have to be set aside. Therefore, since 2009 until mid-2011 when an all-time high of EUR8.6 billion was reached, non-residents put EUR3.5 billion in such deposits.
A factor in the increase of non-resident deposits at the time was the Vienna Initiative, whereby parent groups of the nine leading banks in Romania undertook to preserve exposure to the Romanian market at the 2009 spring level and their subsidiary solvency ratio at more than 10%.
The Vienna Initiative, signed by Erste, Raiffeisen, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece, UniCredit Group, Societe Generale, Alpha Bank, Volksbank and Piraeus Bank expired in 2012, at which time deleveraging became visible.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)