Romania's central lender steps in to protect clients with credits in lei, restricts ROBOR interests

Romania's Central Bank (BNR) decided it can stop showing the ROBID and ROBOR indexes in the event the interbank offer rate ROBOR exceeds by more than 25 percent the interest rate for Lombard credit, in a bid to protect the clients with credits in lei, said BNR spokesman, Mugur Stet.

The Lombard credit is usually given by central banks to lenders which guarantee with state securities. The current annual rate is 14.25 percentage points, established 4 percentage points above the key interest rate of 10.25 percent.

In addition, BNR can stop posting the ROBID/ROBOR interests if ROBOR exceeds 17.8125 percent.

BNR decided to change the norm regarding the functionality of the interbank money market as to assure a normal use of the indexes on the market and to avoid speculations, as interbank interests jumped to more than 100 percent in the past days.

However, this threshold is “too severe”, a dealer said, adding quotations are exaggerated if they exceed by 10-15 percentage points the interest rate for Lombard credit.

On the other hand, dealer with Banca Transilvania Florin Bota deems the level established by BNR is reasonable as transactions in the past six months were made at an average interest of 15-20 percent.

Interests for ROBID and ROBOR deposits are calculated daily according to the quotations established by the ten commercial banks.

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