Isarescu to bankers: Provide info on all loans

Share all information about the loans taken out by individual customers, not only overdue payments on loan instalments. This is the recommendation made by NBR Governor Mugur Isarescu, sent in a letter to bankers of the Romanian Banking Association.
Given the lifting of restrictions imposed by the NBR, the banks are urged to send positive information about customers to the Credit Bureau, that is notifications concerning ongoing loans even in the absence of repayment problems. The lenders can therefore get a full profile of a new customer, avoiding some of the existing situations. For example the situation involving a person who took several loans from 13 banks, with none of the banks being aware of the loans granted by the others; high above a prudent indebtedness level.
Only eight banks out of the 37 are now sending positive information about loans to individual customers to the Credit Bureau, four of which are out of the major top ten banks. Under the circumstances, the market share for which positive information is available is only slightly higher than 20% of the loans granted to individuals.
The new regulation on lending to individual customers came into force yesterday, once published in the Official Gazette. Until their internal guidelines are approved, banks may grant loans of up to an indebtedness level of 40% of the client’s monthly income.
Serban Epure, the general manager of the Credit Bureau expects to see all 10 of the top players provide and receive positive information from the Bureau by the end of the year. “The elimination of NBR’s restrictions on lending to individuals is a new encouragement to those that have not contributed positive information until now,” Epure says.
The adjustment of the internal guidelines of every bank to the new NBR regulation followed by the approval from the central bank might take several months, triggering stagnation on the market due to expectations for lending relaxation on the part of the customers.
“I discussed the issues pertaining to the transparency and fairness of the internal guideline approval procedure at the National Bank yesterday, and I was promised solutions would be announced in the next few days so that banks could not gain any unfair advantages from this process,” Radu Ghetea, chairman of the Romanian Banking Association told ZF.
He says these solutions will make it possible to avoid such situations as when two banks file their guidelines with the NBR on the same day, yet do not receive approval consecutively.
“There shouldn’t be such ‘false starts’, when a bank is left waiting, while the other may start to grant loans under the new terms,” says Ghetea, who is also chairman of Alpha Bank’s board of directors.
“It is important that the NBR should be able to quickly react from the moment it receives the guidelines of a bank. The market is already waiting, the customers that are not pressed by the need for cash prefer to see what the new lending terms are on offer first and we have a problem if this goes on for too long,” Mihai Bogza, Bancpost chairman, added.