Political initiative for house building

PSD (Social Democrat Party) Deputies Viorel Hrebenciuc, Florin Georgescu, Constantin Teculescu, Neculai Grigoras and Aurel Gubandru have submitted a legislative initiative regarding collective saving and loaning.

Citizens who save money will be granted annual premiums and loans to fund house building, purchasing, refurbishing or expanding.

The bill aims to solve the long-term financing of housing through collective saving and loaning, which will be done by savings or loans offices or banks especially devised for housing.

These institutions will be allowed to work only if they are authorised by the National Bank of Romania (NBR) and will be established as joint stock companies or as subsidiaries of banks and savings houses that are Romanian or foreign legal persons.

The main shareholders in the savings institutions for housing will be only banks or savings offices, while the minority shareholders may be banks, savings houses, real estate companies, insurance companies, central and local administrations, if the law allows it, and natural persons.

Natural persons will not be allowed to hold more than 5% of the share capital.

NBR sets the share capital of the savings houses, but this cannot be lower than the minimum compulsory level settled for the banks. These savings houses do not need to deposit the minimum compulsory reserve at the NBR.

The savings houses will be allowed to carry out multiple businesses and, in addition to the core business, they will be allowed to grant loans, make placements in assets whose risk degree stands between 0% and 20%, transfer funds and provide financial and banking consultancy.

Receivables deriving from house loaning cannot exceed 75% of the value of the funds granted based on the saving-loaning contracts and of the anticipated and intermediary financing deriving from such contracts.

The legislative initiative specifies the authorisation, regulation and monitoring of the savings offices for housing, which responsibilities fall in the charge of NBR.

Any client that is a Romanian natural person residing in the country may benefit from an annual state premium for the annual savings, in compliance with the saving-loaning contract.

The premium will stand for 30% of the saved amount during that particular year, but it cannot exceed the annual gross average salary in the economy.