Overdue payments on loans up to 61m-euros

The overdue payments accumulated by the individual clients on the loans taken from banks have gone up to 217m RON (60.8 million euros) at the end of June, according to the Credit Bureau statistics.
The overdue payment volume is 87% higher in RON than in the same time in 2005, but was slightly slower to grow than the lending to the population, which progressed by 89% in the May 2005-May 2006 interval, the latest NBR data reveal. The number of people that banks in the system reported as having unpaid loans increased to 242,000, 52% more than in June 2005.
“Overdue payments were slower to progress than lending, partly as a result of the operation of the Credit Bureau,” says Serban Epure, the general manager of the Credit Bureau. The Bureau has been watching over 90% of the banking market since June last year, so that data are comparable.
Epure specified that both the amount of overdue payments and the number of debtors were lower in June than in May. “However, it is too soon to be talking about a trend. We will have to wait and see what the upcoming months have in store for us,” Epure added.
The overdue payments of bank loans by individual customers totalled 225 million RON (63.5 million euros) at the end of May, while the number of people that had fallen behind with their payments had reached 257,000.
Out of those behind with their loan repayment, over 34,000 had outstanding debts to at least two banks in the system in June. The number of such people had stood at 22,000 in 2005. Moreover, the maximum number of banks to which a person owes money and has fallen behind with payments is nine, the same as last year.
Epure says the record in terms of the highest individual overdue loan payment has not been broken since last year’s spring, when a bank reported an unpaid debt of approximately 200,000 dollars.
Consumer lending accounts for the largest share of the total overdue loans, while debtors are very careful about repaying their mortgages.