Overdue loans come to account for 2.78% in overall loans

Total overdue loans on the Romanian market climbed to 5.56bn RON (1.31bn euros) in May, being 10.5% above the 5.03bn RON level registered in the previous month and more than 3.4 times higher than in May 2008, according to NBR data. Overdue loans in late May accounted for 2.78% in the total volume of loans, up from 2.49% in April and 0.94% in the same period of last year. However, overdue loans advanced at a slower pace from April, when the volume rose by 12.8% compared with March. At the same time, the total loan volume dropped by 1.4bn RON in May, to 200bn RON (47.3bn euros), with the volume of RON-denominated loans going from 82.7bn RON in April to 82bn RON last month. Overdue payments for RON loans climbed to 3.16bn RON, around 10% above the April level, and were 2.6 times higher than at the end of May 2008. In the case of foreign currency-denominated loans, overdue payments rose 5.3 times above the level of May 2008 and more than 10.7% from April.