ID lending boosts home appliance sales

A year ago, the future was looking decidedly gloomy for home appliance loans. The National Bank had hinted that starting in February 2004 it would be introducing more restrictive requirements for consumer loans, such as a guarantor or mandatory down payments. One year on, guarantor-free loans are history, and loans granted after production of a valid ID card are gaining ground. “The Romanian market has taken some very large steps in less than a year, which we wouldn’t have thought possible a while ago,” says Dan Ostahie, Altex Group chairman. Since October, the two networks of the group, Altex and Media Galaxy, have been running a lending system that requires nothing more than production of a valid ID card. These types of loans are capped at 20 million ROL. “Thirty percent of total funding granted thus far has involved credits of up to 20 million ROL,” says Konstantinos Konstantellos, general manager of Euroline Retail Service (ERS), the company that runs the lending system for Altex and Media Galaxy. ZF