Medium-sized banks have started to raise the interest rates for the deposits in RON closer to the new level of NBR''s intervention rate (8.5%), while the interests on RON loans have been pushed as much down as to 6.9%, as a result of competitive pressure.
Interests on deposits maturing in close to a year have reached levels that cover the inflation anticipated for 2006, 6-6.5% in more and more cases, after a time when they were real negative.
Banca Transilvania, and a small bank, ProCredit Bank, announced at the end of last week that they upped the rates on RON to 7.75% a year, for a 12-month maturity. The projections of the central bank indicate an inflation of 6.5% a year in December, which leaves room for a gain to be made from interests in real terms. ING Bank, a player that caters especially to the corporate segment, in its turn announced interest increases. The bank is now paying 5% to 6% for deposits in RON. On the other hand, the interest paid for deposits in the Cont'' ROL account, the main product ING offers on the retail market remained unchanged, at 6.1% a year (for balances between 700 and 49,999 RON).
All three banks have operated rate increases over the last two months, with these new levels being gradually reached. Most players are in the same situation, as they have announced interest changes until now and are close to paying real positive interests. Out of the market leaders, only Banca Comerciala Romana and Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni were already paying interests above the projected inflation.
On the other hand, the first two months of the year also came with a new wave of rate cuts for loans in RON, but banks say NBR''s new monetary policy leaves no more room for new declines in credit interests. After all, the only obstacle in the way of a possible adjustment of the interests on RON loans is now the increasingly fiercer competition on the market, especially since terms for foreign lending remain restrictive. NBR has taken a series of measures since December last year that are meant to encourage banks to reward customers'' deposits better, along with a tempering of lending. The increase in the intervention rate by one percentage point to 8.5% a year, the setting of a clear schedule for the purging operations and the announcement about the continuation of the strengthening of the monetary policies have, however, conveyed messages hard to decode by the market, with bankers'' opinions diverging most of the time. Which is shown in the still significant variation of the interests operated from one bank to another.
Since the beginning of 2005, the spread between the average interests on new loans in RON and those for deposits for maturities of 1 to 5 years, have followed a visible narrowing trend, reaching from 11.4 percentage points in January to 7.5 percentage points in December. More and more banks are taking smaller interest margins, and are trying to compensate for the reduction of this stream of income through a larger volume of operations. At the same time, interests on loans are being pushed down to lows that would have been unbelievable a year ago, such as Bancpost''s offer of mortgage loans with a 6.9% interest.
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