ARB promotes banks' interests

Romanian Banks’ Association (ARB) proposed the National Bank of Romania (NBR) to stop allowing banks that run out of liquidities to resort to minimal compulsory reserves, except for a minimal level aimed at covering population’s deposits, Romanian Banks’ Association chairman Radu Gratian Ghetea on Wednesday stated.

Radu Gratian Ghetea says that, in case a bank went bankrupt, such a measure might prevent the deposit guarantee Fund from facing lack of resources. Romanian Banks’ Association chairman states that he intends to modernise the guarantee Fund, as, at present, it is “a mere cashier.”

As to credit cooperatives’ access to the guarantee Fund, Ghetea deems it as unacceptable. “I do not think that NBR can do this,” Ghetea said.

He added that ARB members agree to the idea of buying long maturity T-bills by using the difference resulted from cutting down minimal compulsory reserves that banks have to set up within NBR.

National Bank of Romania officials believe that reducing minimal reserves might lead to liquidities’ increase on the market. Ghetea says that, following such a measure, “banks’ profits will not register a boom.”

The level of banks’ reserves within the National Bank of Romania stands at 30% of attracted deposits, and for these amounts banks receive interest rates standing at half of the market’s level.