NBR attracts 950m euros. In ROL

The National Bank of Romania (NBR) has attracted 34,000bn ROL (950 million euros) from the money market during the last three trading sessions. This is no typo. And the amount is nearly twice higher than the eurobond issue the Finance Ministry is preparing to release on the international markets.
In its attempt to sterilise the money market to avoid any potential inflationary trouble, the central bank has been very active on this market since the beginning of the year and has bought huge amounts of cash. The banks had nearly 1.8bn euros in ROL equivalent placed with the NBR in short-term deposits by late February.
Actually, the central bank has attracted deposits from banks every single day of this week (10,800bn ROL on Monday, 12,400bn ROL on Tuesday, and 10,800bn ROL on Wednesday). It is true that some of this money is just a rollover of deposits maturing these days, but it would have eventually reached the market if the central bank had not picked it up.
Despite the mounting costs of this sterilisation policy- for instance, interest on the 950 million euros alone amounts to 15 million euros, it looks like the central bank is pretty much powerless in fighting inflation unless helped by the Finance Ministry and by the banks.
Since the banks are not exactly rushing to embrace lending, because, as they say, risks are still much too high and uncovered by interests and the Finance Ministry has been paying less and less for T-bills lately, the market is practically “soaked” in ROL.
At any rate, the current situation is convenient for almost everybody. Especially for the banks. The interests NBR pays – more or less willingly, on deposits attracted are still good and considerably higher than those offered by the Finance Ministry. The Ministry offered only 15.5% a year on the average during the latest tender for three-month T-bills, suggesting it does not really need as much cash as it used to. The Ministry needed only 7,500bn ROL from banks to refinance the deficit in March and will need even less in April, that is only 6,400bn ROL.