The rise of ROBOR in the past few days was because of the temporary drop in liquidity on the interbank market and the inflationary and central bank monetary policy tightening expectations, analysts say.
“The factors that led to the current rise in interest rates are the expectations about a monetary policy tightening by the central bank, although a bit exaggerated as far as we are concerned, at the moment, the start of the minimum mandatory reserves setting up period, the inconsistent budgetary fulfilment, the special dividends paid or expected to be paid by the state-run companies and the payments to the state budget on September 25,” said Ciprian Dascalu, chief economist of ING Bank.
The rise in ROBOR was also because of the central bank’s interventions on the forex market, which led to withdrawal of leu liquidity and the fact that the liquidity surplus was relatively low on the money market at the end of August, the ING chief economist believes.
Average liquidity reached 2.27 billion lei (EUR493 million) on Wednesday, down from a daily average of RON3.1 billion in August, according to central bank data.
The increase in ROBOR means higher installments to pay for leu loan holders. The higher the loan, the more visible the impact of the rise in ROBOR is.
Analysts say this is temporary and will even out in the coming weeks, so ROBOR will reach 1% to 1.3% at the end of the year. On the other hand, they do not rule out pressure on liquidity and interests over the next few days.
“We might see some pressure on liquidity and interest rates in the coming days but our base scenario is that things will calm down in a matter of weeks and Robor will remain somewhere at 1% to 1.3% by the end of the year,” said Horia Braun, chief economist of BCR.
“Liquidity excess will return to the market and in the absence of significant shocks to the inflation, we see no good reasons for a significant tightening of the monetary policy.”
Most analysts see three-month ROBOR at about 1% by yearend and expect it to reach 2% as late as the end of next year. (EUR1=RON4.5991)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)