Romania could witness the doubling of its mortgage loans market by 2009, bank official says

Romania's mortgage credits market could double next year reaching to 8 billion euros, according to the estimates of mortgage loans division manager with Bancpost, Ana Cernat.

Cernat deems in the future people will contract more loans in euro rather than in other currencies partially because most of the clients' spendings, including utilities, are  calculated according the to single European currency.

Cernat also estimated that the total mortgage guaranteed loans will reach 10 billion euros in 2009. Although the mortgage loans market could double, it still has a very low percentage within the GDP compared to most of the European countries.

Mortgage loans stood at 3.4 percent of the GDP at the end of November last year. GDP on 2007 is estimated at 389.8 billion lei. Bancpost is Romania's sixth lender by assets. The bank last year held a 4.9 percent stake in the market, regarding the total volume of loans. Bancpost reported a 25.5 million lei net profit last year after suffering loses the year before.

NewsIn