Loans in national currency are traditionally in high demand (75.6%), and also traditionally, the most demanded of them are consumer loans. In June, individuals took loans worth 2.5 billion lei (+1.1%), and most of them (61.5%) were granted for consumer needs. The main direction is for real estate (38.3%).
Lending to households is becoming more expensive. The average rate on consumer loans issued in the national currency amounted to 10.78%, on real estate loans – 7.35%. Business loan rates remained unchanged – the average rate of 8.57% in the national currency and 5.2% – in foreign currency.
Attracting funds from the population in June was a failure for banks. The volume of new term deposits amounted to 3.5 billion lei, including deposits of individuals – 2.6 billion lei, decreasing by 15% as compared to May. Although, if we compare the situation of a year ago, compared to June last year, the deposits of individuals in national currency increased by 66.3%, and in foreign currency – by 12.3%.
The fall in interest in savings is partly explained by the cost, which does not cover inflationary expectations of the population – the average rate on deposits for individuals in national currency for the month decreased to 5.13%, but on attracted deposits in foreign currency increased to 1.35%. However, the alternative instrument of investing funds – in government securities – is still obviously more favorable for the population, although it is not so flexible and not available to everyone.
The tendency of transition to foreign currency savings is barely emerging, but it is still incomparable neither in terms of volumes, nor in terms of demand. The share of all deposits attracted by banks in national currency amounted to 73.5% (2, 53 billion lei), decreasing by 20.7% over the month. The volume of deposits attracted in foreign currency amounted to 914.5 million lei, increasing by 4.6%.
As for the newly attracted deposits of legal entities, they decreased in June by 19% in national currency (665.8 million lei) and remained almost at the same level in terms of attracted volume on foreign currency accounts (166 million lei), symbolizing the funds of enterprises and organizations put into daily turnover.
