ARB's Neacsu: Banking system in Romania is healthy, very resilient

  The banking system in Romania is healthy, very resilient, and solvency is currently at 23%, Bogdan Neacsu, president of the Romanian Bankers Association (ARB), said on Monday at the 12th edition of the ZF Bankers Summit."I would not say that the banking system is shrinking, even if the economy is growing. I would say that it is growing and if we look at the banking assets in general we have a significant growth. Moreover, financial intermediation or the level of financial inclusion, if you look at the population, has also grown significantly. For example, in the case of financial inclusion, we are approaching a level of 70%. If we look 10 years ago, I think we were talking about a level of less than 50%. I believe that the Romanian banking system is taking important steps to support this economic growth. It is very true that this economic growth is also influenced by the area of financial assets in Romania, but also by the financing provided by the parent companies present in Romania. What is certain is that we are talking about a healthy, very resilient banking system. Solvency is at 23% if we look now. The liquidity of the system is very high. Deposits are still growing rapidly," Neacsu said.According to him, banks in Romania are currently focusing on supporting companies present on the local market and developing operations: either to attract new clients or to try to motivate entrepreneurs to take on new projects.The ARB president added that in 2023, a 10.5% year-on-year credit growth was observed, and this year, until April, a credit growth of 5.8 - 6% was observed. He mentioned that this indicator is expected to improve in the second half of the year.Regarding the consolidation of the banking system, Bogdan Neacsu said that the trend has been manifest since 2010, and the operations carried out so far have brought value to the banking system itself, not only to companies.