Nicolae Cinteza, head of the central bank’s Supervisory Department, said last week in Parliament the banking system had losses much larger than RON2 billion in 2014. He said the RON2 billion level had already been exceeded in November and losses widened in December.
Cinteza explained the system’s massive loss saying banks have been forced to make large provisions to cover non-performing loans (NPL) and clean their balance sheets, a process that started in summer last year, following a central bank directive.
He said not all banks had cleared their balance sheet by the end of September and had promised to finish the process by the end if the year.
The Romanian banking system posted a profit of RON497 million in 2013, as 23 banks had a total profit of RON2.05 billion and 17 banks totaled losses of RON1.55 billion.
The system posted losses of RON2.3 billion in 2012 and of RON777 million in 2011.