Photo: Octav Ganea/ Inquam Photos
At the same time, individuals and businesses are choosing different currencies for their loans. Romanians mainly take out loans in lei, while companies have significantly increased the volume of their foreign-currency loans, according to ZF.
The volume of loans to individuals in lei reached 200.5 billion RON. Over the past year, it grew by 8.1%. Foreign-currency loans to individuals, on the other hand, continue to decline—as of the end of July, their volume stood at 14.2 billion RON.
For companies, the situation is the opposite. The volume of foreign-currency loans grew by 20.5% over the year, reaching 142.5 billion RON, while business loans in lei fell to 115.3 billion RON.
Against this backdrop, banks increased their lending to the government. Government loans reached 286.1 billion RON in July, up 2.4% for the month and 12.6% year-over-year.
Of this amount, 50.2 billion RON consists directly of loans to government agencies. Another nearly 236 billion RON consists of government debt securities held by banks.
At the same time, deposits from private-sector clients also increased. In July, they rose by 0.5% month-over-month, to 684.5 billion RON. Year-over-year growth stood at 7.8%.
Thus, the BNR data show varying trends across the main categories of borrowers: households are taking out more loans in lei, companies are significantly increasing their foreign-currency financing, and lending to the government is growing faster than lending to the private sector.
