Banks granted new credits of 195 billion lei to people and companies in 2020 and 2021, when the non governmental credit was 330 billion lei at the end of December, said Gabriela Folcut, CEO of the Romanian Association of Banks. “In 2020 and 2021 the volume of new credits granted by banks to people and companies was 195 billion lei, when the overall non governmental credit was 330 billion lei at the end of December. Practically, in 2021 alone, credits worth a third of the non governmental credit were granted,” said Gabriela Folcut at “Financial Forum 2022,” organized by The Diplomat. She said that the digitization activity did not start during the pandemic, but long before, but over 2020- 2021 there was a certain acceleration from the investment perspective, of about two billion lei for the first 15 banks in the market. “We, the Romanian Association of Banks, we studied this area and we found out that after the first year of pandemic 47% of consumers used online bank services and products. 19% used both online and offline services and 34% which is devoted to the physical interaction with the bank will remain devoted to the interaction with a bank officer,” Folcut said.
The number of people in Romania at risk of poverty stood at 3.59 million people in 2024, 375,000 fewer than in 2023, representing a 9.4% decrease, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, or INS. Despite the improvement, nearly one in five Romanians was affected by poverty last year. According to INS, 19% […]
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Cluj-Napoca carried out multiple searches on Tuesday, July 1, at the Sibiu International Airport and the Sibiu County Council as part of an investigation into suspected fraud involving a EUR 54 million EU-funded infrastructure project. A total of 24 locations were searched across Bucharest, Brașov, and Sibiu county, […]
A Romanian taxi driver who scammed 90-year-old Nigerian Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka was detained by police on Sunday, June 29, according to media reports. On Friday, June 27, the venerable Nigerian arrived at Bucharest's Otopeni Airport. He got into a taxi and asked to be taken to a hotel downtown. At the destination, the […]
Costin Șerban, a Romanian entrepreneur, is digitalizing the construction sector in the United Kingdom with an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution developed over 12 years and an investment of GBP 1.6 million (EUR 1.86 million). Șerban’s cloud-based ERP platform is called Abilo, was developed by the Romanian IT company Obi Systems, and is dedicated to […]
Border checks between Bulgaria and Romania have officially been lifted on July 1, as part of the implementation of the Schengen Agreement. The lifting marks the end of the transitional period of heightened control at the internal border, which had remained in place for six months following their accession to the Schengen area by land […]
Remus Vulpescu became CEO of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB) on Tuesday, July 1, taking over from Adrian Tănase as the stock exchange grapples with a market dominated by government bonds. Vulpescu, 53, is a graduate in political and legal sciences from the University of Bucharest and holder of an EMBA obtained in 2017. He […]
