More than 200,000 Romanians are late with paying their bank installments by more than 30 days, according to data from the Romanian Credit Risk Bureau. In effect, one in four Romanians with loans of at least EUR 4,500 are having troubled paying their dues on time.

At the end of May, 850,000 Romanians had to pay banks some EUR 20 billion, when overdue payments exceeded EUR 1.1 billion, or some 5.7 percent of total loans. The level of overdue loans went up ten fold compared to the same period of 2008, while the number of people who are late with their payments doubled.

However, pundits expect a stagnation in the level of non-performing loans, as the economy is expected to slowly recover. On a longer term, an improvement is foreseen, mainly due to the banks' prudent attitude.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: sxc.hu)