Moldova has the highest rates for overnight loans in the region

The continuous rise of the inflation in Moldova, determined the Central Bank to intervene again on the monetary market, this time however with more drastic moves. These days, the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) decided to raise the basic rate on REPO operations to 18.5% and the norm of the compulsory reserves in Moldovan lei and convertible currencies attracted by banks gradually to 22%. At the same time, the rate of the overnight credits was increased up to 21%, so Moldova is now among the countries in the region with the highest rate in this respect (Turkey 19.75%, Belarus, 20%), Info-Prim Neo reports. According to a report issued by the independent analytical center Expert-Grup, following this policy of the NBM, the interest rates of the loans offered and the deposits attracted by commercial banks have grown since May, while the volume of loans granted, on the contrary, has seen a constant drop. Moreover, the weight of the consumer loans in the total of the loans granted dropped by 0.2 percentage points. However, this has not led to decreasing the number of circulating money. On the contrary, during this period, the monetary aggregate M0 has risen because of remittances from abroad, which in the first quarter of 2008 grew by 50% compared to the same period of 2007. The banking system, has been able to face up the May interventions because of available financial means following the deposits of natural entities, however the growth of the interests rates was unavoidable. This time, the dissatisfaction of the commercial banks is bigger because of the significant increase of compulsory reserves, which limit the opportunities of developing new crediting offers. One of the faults in the NBM’s policy would be, in the opinion several bank managers, the unavoidability of rising interests for loans, what would reduce the possibilities of investing.