BCR: Non-performing corporate loans to continue to increase

The first positive signals in the economy will emerge in late 2009 or early 2010 and for banks this will mean a fall in non-performing loans on the retail segment, while on the corporate one the number of bad payers will continue to rise, says Dominic Bruynseels, CEO of BCR, the biggest bank on the Romanian market. “(…) I believe data will be significantly better in the last quarter of this year or in early 2010. This means non-performing loans on the market of individuals will go down, while on the corporate segment bad loans will probably increase further in the first half of next year as companies’ balance sheets were seriously hurt by the problems of the previous year, which will lead to rising provisions,” said Bruynseels.