BCR cuts interest for mortgage credit

On Monday BCR (Romanian Commercial Bank) engaged in a new offensive on the retail market, by announcing the launch of two credits in foreign currency for individual clients, a mortgage credit and a consumer credit, with interest rates starting from 7% a year in euros. The bank seems determined to take full advantage of the room to manoeuvre it still has for granting funding in foreign currency, as it now offers interest rates positioned at the lower end of the market. The move, however, takes place quite a while after the NBR norms were put in place, last September, and many of the players affected by these norms have taken steps to resume foreign currency crediting. Moreover, the decision comes at a time when the bank”s new owner, the Austrian group Erste, assigned BCR”s management with the task of regaining its market share and reaching 35%. ZF