Bankers forced to pay more for deposits

Interest rates paid for RON-denominated deposits continue to rise as bankers need more money, due to the fact that they were left with no RON after the central bank took away part of their funds. Now, bankers are urging customers to save more, whereas several months ago they would not take their customers’ money, offering interest rates that did not even equal inflation. Three banks, ProCredit, Eurom and Banca Romaneasca, announced interest rises starting yesterday, after four players had made a similar move last week. As a matter of fact, two small-sized players, Carpatica and ProCredit, have already performed two interest hikes for RON, at the beginning of this month. Banks were left without cash after the NBR increased the minimum reserves for RON to 20%. Since the enforcement of this measure in late July, the RON surplus on the monetary market has been absorbed and several banks (particularly the small ones, lacking developed customer portfolios) had to pay bigger interests, of up to 16%, to draw in funds from the inter-bank market.