Raiffeisen trailblazes new housing loans

Raiffeisen Banca pentru Locuinte, the first financial institution established in line with Law 541/2002 regulating collective saving and crediting for housing, is ready to sell its product.

The proposed system is based on the sealing of a “saving-crediting” contract on the basis of which the customer saves a “minimal sum” and gets, within at least 18 months, the right to receive a loan at a fixed rate of interest.

The product is offered in ROL. Owners of such contracts must save at least half of the contracted sum. For the saved sum, customers enjoy a fixed interest rate of 3% per year. Additionally, the state pays a 30% premium on the annual deposited sums, which should not however exceed the average monthly gross salary communicated by the National Statistics Institute at the end of the year (180 euros is the estimation for 2004). At the end of the saving period, customers benefit from a loan whose value will equal the total sum of savings. The interest the bank will charge for the contracted loan stands at 6% per year.

Interest rates are fixed for the entire period of the contract, irrespective of interest fluctuations on the monetary market.

Customers authorise the bank to solicit the payment of premiums at the end of the year through the Transportation and Housing Ministry, with the bank also assuming responsibility for ascertaining that the money is used for the stated objective.

“This is a new product for which we had to offer a thorough explanation to the National Bank in order to obtain the licence. We hope rival products will appear soon, but banks that follow our lead will have a much easier task from this point of view,” Ionut Costea, chairman of Raiffeisen Banca pentru Locuinte, stated on Tuesday on the occasion of the official inauguration of the bank’s activity.

He says the product is mainly targeting natural persons with low and middle incomes.

The new bank has three shareholders: Raiffeisen Bank-Romania, Bausparkasse Schwaebisch Hall-Germany and Raiffeisen Bausparkasse-Austria.
razvan.voican@zf.ro