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Romania's Kiwi Finance to broker four-fold less credits y/y in Q1, general manager says

Romania's top credit broker Kiwi Finance expects to broker loans worth 12.2 million euros in the first quarter, about 26 percent of the volume brokered in the same period last year, following massive drop of business starting three months ago, the company's GM Anca Bidian told NewsIn.

The company planned to hike lending by 15-20 percent this year, but in the past months it lost 20-30 percent of the average recorded in the last nine months of 2008.

The slowdown of crediting was first felt starting October and the results were seen in November, said Bidian, adding Kiwi Finance stopped crediting completely.

However, she said banks began to assign more credits starting January and more than half of Kiwi's partners are currently inking loans.

The effects of the economic crisis were felt less by the nonbanking financial institutions (IFN) which gained more in the past period if they had liquidities owing to an easier access to credits, even if interests increased. The degree of indebtedness waves around 25-60 percent depending on banks' risk policies. Banks currently finance only 50 percent of the value of mortgage loans for old houses, Bidian said.

Bidian mentioned banks lowered the degree of indebtedness for loans to 35 percent, so the average level of credits dropped to 5,000 euros for consumer loans and to 35,000 euros for mortgage loans.

About 7 percent of the total volume of loans were brokered by credit brokers last year. The percentage could go up to 10 percent this year, according to data provided by Bidian.

Kiwi Finance currently operates nine units countrywide. It had an office in Madrid, opened for those Romanians working in Spain, but decided to shut it down because of the economic crisis.

Since in was established in 2003 and until now, the company brokered loans amounting to over 300 million euros.

 

Sursa: http://www.newsin.ro

Tags: loans percent bidian credits broker finance