Cetelem head: Loan demand is bouncing back

Cetelem, the biggest consumer lending company on the market, controlled by BNP Paribas French group, budgeted a 25% increase in new funding from 2010 and particularly counts on credit cards and loans applied for online.

French Gilles Zeitoun, 41, who has run Cetelem Romania for one year, says new funding granted by Cetelem advanced by 29% last year owing to credit card sales and estimates an average increase of 10% on the entire market, with a similar pace likely to be registered this year, as well.

"The consumer lending market started expanding again last year, but at a slow pace. In the case of Cetelem, sales of new loans topped our initial expectations owing to card segment activity. We'll further bet on credit cards and on the online sale of loans since we saw this is a strategy starting to bear fruit," Zeitoun stated.
The company last year issued 66,000 credit cards and reached a portfolio of around 300,000, with sales being spurred by the launch of a scheme of payments in fixed instalments for purchases by credit card and by periodic promotional offers.

Cetelem has the third largest credit card portfolio among domestic financial institutions, after Credit Europe Bank and Raiffeisen, in line with data available on the market.