The decline in the interests at which banks borrow money isstarting to translate in the cost of the loans. This will show howhigh the demand for loans is.
Although it would have been unbelievable a year ago, loans inRON for companies, as well as mortgage credits will revert toone-digit interests as in 2006-2007, because bankers are adjustingtheir offers, pressured by the need to drive sales up to achievetheir budget targets for this year.
The cut in RON loan prices has been stimulated by the NationalBank's policy for several months now, which took heart from theimprovement of the perception of Romania among foreign investors atthe beginning of the year and pushed for a slump of interest rateson the interbank market to 3-6% a year, clearly below the monetarypolicy rate of 7% per annum.
Now is when we shall clearly see whether the very slowprogression of the lending in the last eighteen months was reallycaused by the reluctance of clients to take on more debt, asbankers say, or whether the lack of demand was caused by the toohigh interest level. The lending in RON for individual clients fellby 5% in January compared with January 2009, while the corporatelending was down 3%.
In 2009, the share of RON loans in the total fell by less than40%.
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