The banking sector during the first nine months of this year witnessed increases in assets, loans, own funds, deposits of private individuals and legal entities. According to the National Bank of Moldova, the level of liquidity in the sector is high. At the same time, the quality of the loan portfolio worsened insignificantly, while the profit made in the period declined compared with the corresponding period last year, IPN reports.

On September 30, the profit in the banking system came to 1.151,3 billion, decreasing by 35% on the same period last year. The decline was mainly due to the 29.5% rise in costs that are not related to interest, primarily due to the larger depreciation of the financial assets. The costs related to interests diminished by 1.9%.

The returns that are not related to interest rose by 11.4%., while those from interest decreased by 2.87% following the reduction in the average rate on loans in national currency from 8.07 % on September 30, 2019 to 7.68% on September 30, 2020, and in currency from 5.21%  to 4.91%. The total revenues came to 5.6 billion lei, up 2.8% or 152.6 million lei compared with the corresponding period last year.

There are 11 licensed banks in Moldova. BC “Energbank” SA is supervised under an early intervention regime that was applied on January 11, 2019 after ascertaining that a group of persons acted concertedly and acquired a qualified holding of the bank’s share capital, of 52.55%, without the prior written agreement of the NBM. On October 9, 2020, the Executive Board of the NBM extended the mandate of the temporary administrators of “Energbank” until April 11, 2021.