BCR puts pressure on market of deposit interest rates

BCR, the biggest bank on the Romanian market, started the fight over client resources with Greek banks and with lending institutions with Romanian shareholders, paying 8% a year on three-month RON deposits and 4% on euro deposits with a similar maturity, set up by the end of the year.
The move comes at a time when interest rates on short-term deposits on the interbank market are kept below the NBR's monetary policy interest rate, which in turn was held at 6.25% a year over the past six months. For euro-denominated financing, the European Central Bank kept its key interest rate at 1% a year, although a slight increase in the cost of financing was felt on the European monetary market.
The promotional offer was launched ahead of BCR's December 1st celebration of 20 years since its establishment, with the bank seeking to attract new clients this way. Nine months into the year, the volume of deposits attracted from clients fell by 2.63%, to 34.8 billion RON.
Greek banks pay similar interest rates, such as is the case of Alpha Bank and ATE Bank, which had to diversify their resources of financing amid Greek problems. So do Romanian-held banks Transilvania and Carpatica, which do not have a foreign group behind, able to supply them with funds.