OTP Bank, the first bank to help its customers that have taken loans in Swiss Francs

OTP Bank comes along with a solution to help its customers that have loans denominated in Swiss francs and are having problems in repaying them.

The bank will lower the interest rate by 1%, for a period of 6 months, up to two years, and will stop the payment of the capital for up to 2 years, for customers that will request these facilities, claims Gabriel Creţu, the head of the Distribution Channel and Branch Management Division. These solutions will cause loan payments to shrink by 25-30%, he added.

"We are in the middle of a road-show that we are having all across the country, we are talking to the heads of our branches and we are trying to be more transparent to our clients", Gabriel Creţu said yesterday.

The representative of OTP Bank also said that the decision of the bank is a proactive measure instead of a reactive one, to the strong appreciation of the Swiss Franc of late. He says that the evolution pf the exchange rate of the Swiss Franc is a speculative bubble whichm will burst just like any bubble does.

Gabriel Creţu said: "We are hoping that the exchange rate will return to the band of 1.2-1.3 Francs/Euro, in the coming three months. since the Swiss central bank has set this target, this is what we are betting on as well, we are not more optimistic than that for now. Structurally, Romanians trust Swiss watches. Let"s hope this faith will be well placed this time as well".

As for the fixing of the exchange rate by the Hungarian government, for those who took out loans denominated in Swiss Francs, this is not a viable alternative. Our talks with Budapest don"t seem to say that there would have been too many requests in this respect, as we are talking about a kind of rescheduling, according to Gabriel Creţu.

He said: "We do have this product which allows us to freeze the Exchange rate, but we do not think it is a good alternative. Freezing the exchange rate at 4 lei/franc? If this solution had been a good one, we would have been pressured in Ardeal at the very least by many requests to do so, but nobody is bringing such a proposal".

OTP Bank has about 13,800 customers, who took out loans in Swiss Francs, and who account for about 70% of the total portfolio. Loans which are in default (ed. note: which have not seen payments for more than 90 days) only represent 4% of the total number of mortgages in Swiss Francs, and 8% in terms of value.