BNR hopes non-performing loans will go down to 6 pct

National Bank of Romania (BNR) aims for non-performing loans to go down to 6 percent from 9-10 percent currently, said on Wednesday Liviu Voinea, BNR’s vice-governor at the launch of “Economic report for Romania 2017”.

„The non-performing loans continued to decrease. This year the aim is 6 percent, meaning the European average. We are however, over the European average on the coverage level with provisions of these loans. From the perspective of budge, Romania shouldn’t have used the public budget for the banking sector all these years, starting 2009,” said Voinea.

According to him, Romania has a low inflation, it’s not in deflation and the interest rates reached the historical minimums.

„The legislative uncertainty was reduced and BNR contributed to it. Banks continued their cleaning of the balance sheet from non-performing loans, they are capitalized and the contagion risk is in drop and we have net international reserves in increase, ” added Voinea.