The commercial banks active in Romania reached a cumulated net profit of over EUR 258 million in the first three months of the year, up by 43% compared to the same period in 2015, when the local banking system saw a net profit of EUR 181 million.

The positive results are due to drop in risk provisions and non-performing loans combined with a significant increase in the total loan portfolio, reports local Profit.ro. The local banks reduced their provisions by over 16% compared to March 2015 to EUR 4.8 billion, as the overdue loans dropped by EUR 818 million to almost EUR 4.6 billion.

The drop in provisions and NPLs was mainly due to the sale of NPL portfolios worth some EUR 2 billion in the last 12 months.

At the same time, the overall loan portfolio went up by over EUR 1.56 billion, in the past 12 months, reaching EUR 49 billion.

editor@romania-insider.com