Overdue payments for small credits: almost 100m euros

The overdue payments of the population on the small credits (of up to 6,000 euros) climbed to 325.6 million RON (equivalent to 97 million euros) at the end of March, after six months of continuous growth. Over the course of 2006, the increase in overdue payments had seen regular corrections, but this has not occurred in the last few months. The increase came even amid a slowdown in the growth rate of credits taken out by the population, witnessed last winter. According to data from the NBR (National Bank of Romania), at the end of March, over 301,000 people had overdue payments for small credits (below 20,000 RON). As a matter of fact, the number of overdue payments saw a significant rise, by 5%, after it had declined in February. The volume of overdue payments rose in March alone by almost 4%.