Bankers Teach Clients To Borrow In Lei By Making FX Loans More Expensive

05.23.2011 ZF English

Bankers have radically changed consumer loan prices after the shock of the leu depreciation of 2008-2009, which reminded them the foreign-exchange risk is not just in books, and at present leu-denominated unsecured loans are cheaper than foreign currency-denominated ones.

Interest rates for leu-denominated consumer loans have come to be as much as two percentage points lower than those for similar euro-denominated ones, which means monthly savings of several tens of lei for a EUR5,000 (RON20,000) loan.

Several banks have even gone to the extreme and are selling only leu-denominated unsecured loans.

"Banks have understood that foreign currency risk is important and they'd better include this cost in the risk margin than leave the decision up to clients," comments financial analyst Aurelian Dochia.

Offers are now completely different from those of boom years, when bankers used to lure clients with very cheap foreign currency-denominated loans, inclusively for small sums.