Foreign banks in Romania to meet with NBR, IMF and EC at Brussels

The foreign banks, along with representatives of the National Bank of Romania and of international institutions, will review the progress of the gentleman’s agreement and will identify measures to help the foreign banks honor their commitment.

The National Bank of Romania, IMF, European Commission and foreign banks said they hadn’t changed their strategy at keeping the exposure to Romania at 31 March level. However, the international capital flows to the foreign banks’ Romanian subsidiaries has been curtailed by 2% to €0.7 billion said the deputy governor of NBR, Cristian Popa.

Cristian Popa (photo), the deputy governor of the central bank will not participate in today’s meeting at Brussels. Earlier this month, Cristian Popa said he didn’t expect any change in the banks’ policies, as they could have cut their exposure if they had wanted, because the Vienna commitment was only a “gentleman’s agreement”.

This is the third meeting held this year. In the first meeting at Vienna at the end of March, nine foreign banks, NBR and representatives of IMF and EC signed an agreement to shore up operations in the Romanian banking sector and increase capital flows to their subsidiaries if needed.

Te nine foreign banks are: Erste Bank, Raiffeisen International, Eurobank, EFG, National Bank of Greece, UniCredit, Societe Generale, Alpha Bank, Volksbank and Piraeus Bank.