Volume of new loans provided by commercial banks records 5.5-per cent annual increase pace in Moldova in January 2020

Chisinau, 2 March /MOLDPRES/ - The commercial banks in last January provided new loans worth 2.2 billion lei, up by 5.5 per cent against the same period of 2019. The highest annual increase was registered by the crediting in foreign currency - +7.3 per cent against January last year, followed by the crediting in Moldovan lei - +5 per cent, while the volume of credits related to a foreign currency recorded a 2.4-per cent decrease.   

Economic expert Viorel Garbu has told the website www.infodebit.md that, while in 2019, the highest pace of increase was determined by the crediting in Moldovan lei, in the first month of this year, the crediting in foreign currency grew most of all. Similarly, although a drop of the volume of new credits provided is registered in the category of loans related to foreign currency, the volume of loans provided to legal entities increased by 27.8 per cent.      

The average rate of interest on the loans provided in national currency, amounting to 8.35 percentage points, in last January recorded an insignificant 1percentage point increase against data from January 2019, at the same time, decreasing by 3 percentage points against the values from December 2019.  

According to Garbu, although apparently, the average interest rate on the credits provided in Moldovan lei did not changed significantly against January 2019, this evolution should be associated with the annual inflation rate, which stood at 6.85 per cent in January 2020 against 2.2 per cent in January 2019. Thus, the margin between the average interest rate on the loans provided in national currency and the annual inflation rate registered a significant diminution during January 2020.