Bankers promise to bring money to Romania

BNR Governor Mugur Isarescu said that the first step following the IMF agreement would be the elimination of CRR for long-term financing, which would raise liquidity on the market, and simultaneously encourage banks to offer long-term loans. Lenders who took part in the discussions with IMF, namely Erste Bank, Raiffeisen International, Eurobank EFG, the National Bank of Greece, UniCredit, Société Générale, Alpha Bank, Volksbank, and Piraeus Bank, have signed a written commitment to extend this year’s maturities and capitalize their subsidiaries. However, banks will be compelled to comply with the agreement based on IMF-set liquidity requirements. Analysts said that BNR will maintain the key rate at the current 10 percent level. Banks must now set aside 40 percent of their foreign currency deposits and 18 percent of their lei deposits as reserves with BNR. „The central bank could decide on Tuesday to modify only the calculation base, in order to exclude financing for more than two years. The benchmark rate and the CRR for lei and euro will not be reduced in Tuesday’s meeting,“ said the Chief Economist of Raiffeisen Bank Romania, Ionut Dumitru. (L.D., B.A.)