Offered Interest Rate Hits 40%, UniCredit Tiriac Replaces Treasurer

The interest rates announced by commercial banks for overnight deposits reached 15% for bid rates and 40% for offered rates, but the number of transactions remains low, as in the previous sessions. In the first half of the day, the National Bank of Romania (BNR) announced an average bid rate (ROBID) of 14.08% per year and an average offered rate (ROBOR) of 17.69% (down from 17.8% on Friday) for overnight deposits. Despite the high interest rates on the interbank market, the leu depreciated in line with the regional trend that pushes the currencies of emergent countries down against the EUR. In the beginning of yesterday"s session, the leu was quoted at 3.64 RON/EUR, up from Friday. The depreciation continued throughout the day to a peak of 3.6850 RON/EUR. At the moment, the BNR is a creditor of the banking system, having injected some 3.5 billion RON into the interbank market in October, both through the Lombard-type credit facility and through swap operations. "We are now a net creditor, but there is also a technical relativity factor in this matter," said BNR Vice Governor Cristian Popa, quoted by NewsIn. "We injected liquidities into the market throughout October, in a context that commercial banks and the central bank used the Lombard credit and swaps. The average for October was 3.5 billion RON. On the other hand, there were days when we injected more than that," he added. On a different topic, Bogdan Mihoc is no longer the Director of Treasury at UniCredit Tiriac Bank, the bank announced. He has been replaced by Dorin Alexandru Badea, formerly the Deputy Director of Treasury. The bank did not wish to comment on Mihoc"s departure. Sources in the financial market say that Mihoc"s departure is related to the scandal triggered by the record-high surge in the interest rates on the interbank market over the past two weeks. At the end of October, BNR Governor Mugur Isarescu said a group of banks had spread the rumor that there was a liquidity crisis on the banking market in an attempt to recover the losses they had incurred during an attack on the leu. At that time, the central bank summoned the presidents of seven banks and requested explanations regarding the excessively high interest rates in the previous few days. BNR also summoned the president and the treasurer of another bank for clarifications regarding the clearing operations that the bank had performed with non-resident financial institutions.