Those who want Ordinance 50 to apply to their contracts have to sign additional papers within the month

Autor: Liviu Chiru 21.12.2010

Holders of ongoing loans who want to benefit from the provisions of Ordinance 50/2010, which establishes transparent terms for the consumers' loans, need to hurry and sign the additional papers supplied by the bank before Parliament gives its final vote on the modified form of the ordinance.


This year's most intensely discussed legislation, the Ordinance 50 bill is to be presented on Thursday in the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies, which has a decisional role on this matter.
Bankers have since the very beginning been against applying the ordinance in the case of old loans, saying that moving from a calculation formula of the type Euribor plus fixed margin for floating interest rates at a time when the indicator is at all-time lows, can lead to higher costs in the future. Clients asked them to lower their margins, but banks did not find this option acceptable.
Clients who want to have such a cost structure, as well as benefit from the other provisions of the ordinance, have to sign the additional papers now. They run the risk of the bank establishing non-transparent costs once again, considering that the Ordinance has been amended in the Chamber of Deputies, so it will no longer apply to old loans.
In the case of big banks, only 10% of holders of consumer loans and of real estate loans came in to sign the additional papers before the September 19 deadline, while the non-signing was taken as tacit agreement. The percentage could be higher only in the case of small banks, where advisors had more time to take a proactive approach to clients.