Consumer lending: how high can it go?

One thing is certain: Romanians are keen on borrowing. In just five years, the amount of loans taken out has doubled, reaching 20% of GDP.

However, as compared with its neighbours, Romania ranks last, with a figure of 30% seen in Poland, 33% in the Czech Republic and 42% in Hungary.

The Romanian people”s attitude towards living on money borrowed from banks has changed: from being something that was once shunned, living on money borrowed from these kinds of financial institutions has become an accepted lifestyle.

This change has been driven by several factors, as highlighted by an analysis made by BUSINESS Magazin. In the first place, plummeting interest rates have drawn people toward taking out loans. Along with inflation, interest rates have reached an acceptable level, much different from the figures of 40-50% seen several years ago.

Secondly, Romanians really need to narrow the gap in terms of living standards, after “staring for years at the West and its welfare,” says Ion Stefan, a psychologist and sociologist with the Transilvania University of Brasov.

If a few years ago buying a refrigerator or taking a trip abroad was a one-off event, borrowing has now become a customary method of quickly obtaining the goods which citizens once had to wait years to buy.

However, domestic companies also need money. For many years, the complaint was that Romanian firms did not have access to loans because of the high interest rates and tight conditions imposed by banks. Now, most entrepreneurs can more confidently resort to banks, considering that developing a business without such additional funds is “a very slow and difficult process at best”.