Banca Naţională a României

With a view to properly informing the public, the NBR hereby reiterates the following:

1. The banking sector in Romania is sound and liquid. As at 30 June 2017, the average solvency ratio stood at 19.8 percent, as against the minimum requirement, also at European level, of 8 percent and compared to the European average of 14 percent. No bank in Romania records solvency below the minimum requirement. The liquidity ratio, i.e. the ratio of liquid assets to short-term liabilities, comes in at 250.5 percent, which is above the 100 percent minimum regulatory level.
2. The NBR supervises banks from a prudential perspective, not a fiscal one. When a bank incurs losses causing its prudential indicators to worsen, it is the NBR’s duty to require credit institutions to raise capital to bring their solvency and liquidity ratios to levels that ensure their smooth functioning and the safety of household and corporate deposits. Following the central bank’s actions, banks operating in Romania performed in the period from 2008 to 2017 capital increases of approximately lei 15 billion (more than EUR 3.3 billion).
3. According to European legislation, all deposits up to EUR 100,000 (including the equivalent in lei or other currencies) are guaranteed. As at 30 June 2017, the number of Romanian individuals with deposits in local banks ran at 10,204,042, of whom 10,169,155 (99.65 percent of the total figure) held deposits within the guarantee ceiling and 34,887 individuals had deposits in excess of the guarantee ceiling. On that same date, the number of Romanian legal entities with deposits in local banks equalled 736,813, of which 718,924 (97.57 percent of total) had deposits within the guarantee ceiling and 17,889 legal entities held deposits in excess of the guarantee ceiling.

The data above show that there is no reason for concern about the safety of household and corporate deposits with banks in Romania.