Mortgage credit will be growing faster than consumer credit this year, and loans in Romania will continue to account for a larger share in the total than the foreign currency loans.
There is still a lot of room in the Romanians'' purse and on the banking market for the process of buying on credit to continue. This is the conclusion arrived at during the "Consumer lending - how much can Romanians afford to consume on credit?" seminar, organised by ZIARUL FINANCIAR and BRD SocGen at the Marriott Hotel, yesterday.
Romanians still have money to contract loans, due to the purchasing power that has visibly improved over the last few years.
Financial assets of the population are on the rise, indebtedness capacity is still good, consumption demand is still solvent and overdue loans amount to very little. These are the causes that will help the lending process grow in the upcoming period, the participants to the talks said.
"The net financial assets of the population have increased by more than 100% over the last four to five years and the purchasing power will continue to increase," stated Florin Georgescu, NBR first vice-governor.
He believes lending will see a 30% increase in nominal terms compared with the 45% increase last year. "The share of the loans granted in RON will increase to the disadvantage of the loans in foreign currency, and mortgage and real estate loans will grow faster than consumer lending," Georgescu anticipates.
The unprecedented expansion of consumer lending over the last few years has been, first of all, supported by money the banks took from foreign markets, primarily from their respective parent banks, the first vice-governor says.
"It was not the domestic saving, but rather the foreign saving that helped banks mobilise cash for granting loans," he stated.
Consumer lending has already risen by 15% three months into the year (after an 84% growth last year), while mortgage and real estate lending has progressed by a mere 1%, but the trend will reverse by the end of the year, according to the first vice-governor. In his opinion, the NBR''s role is to carefully monitor the lending phenomenon and slow it down when the expansion of the credit is threatening financial stability, the inflation target or the current account deficit. "The goal to maintain macroeconomic stability is complementary to the goal of maintaining price stability," he added.
Radu Ghetea, chairman of the Romanian Banking Association (ARB), on the other hand, disagrees. He says the macroeconomic balance must not be achieved only by slowing lending down, which will exceed by far the 30% growth forecast by the NBR for 2006, anyway. "The macro (economic) balance has to be kept, indeed, but this must not be achieved only by relying on measures restricting the lending imposed on banks," Ghetea stated. "Were we to gather together all the forecasts of the banks about the increase of non-governmental lending this year, we would surely get a pace of over 100%," he added, saying that lending had been the most profitable line of business for commercial banks lately.
mihai.bobocea@zf.ro
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