Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank-BCR) was right in its projections. The banking market leader was the first to join the new declining trend for the interest rates of loans in the national currency, only one day before Finance Minister Mihai Tanasescu called on banks to provide "natural persons" with cheaper ROL-denominated loans, which are the most important this year.
"The economic outlook for 2004 and the memorandum sealed with the International Monetary Fund are the grounds for solid economic stability, and the banking system has to respond to this," Tanasescu was quoted as saying by Mediafax news agency on Monday.
Most likely, BCR is also anticipating a move by the National Bank to cut down the intervention rate by half a percentage point against market estimates, from the annual level of 21.25% that has been maintained for several months.
The move is mainly grounded on the current inflation rate, and especially the inflation projected for the end of this year, which practically accounts for half of the central bank's intervention rate. The hypothesis was confirmed on Monday by official sources quoted by Mediafax.
One year ago, Tanasescu was launching similar forecasts on the rate cuts, but the delay in the implementation of economic restructuring and the soaring arrearage broke the rate cut trend after several months. Thus, interests went back up, even higher than the previous level.
razvan.voican@zf.ro
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