Delinquent loans resume fast-paced growth

After five months of slowdown, delinquent loans individuals owe to banks are picking up speed, after annualised growth reached 51% in August, NBR data reveals. July was the month when delinquent loans of individuals witnessed the lowest annualised growth rate of the last two years, 43%. The steep downward trend started at the beginning of the year, when loan delinquency still increased by more than 90% and even 100%. The slowdown of the growth rate in the first half of this year was due to the favourable base effect, analysts said, which is related to a larger volume of loans. In addition, the abrupt slowdown of the individuals’ delinquent loans was also due to another factor in July, the outsourcing of the non-performing loans to debt collection firms. Compared with July, when banks sold almost 17 million RON in loans to debt collection specialists, in August only 1.7 million RON were outsourced this way, which is one of the reasons why delinquent loans reverted to an over 50% annualised growth.