The 3-month interbank interest rate ROBOR 3M, which is a benchmark for most loans in local currency, climbed to 2.28% per year on Tuesday, April 24, its highest level since October 2014, local News.ro reported.

On Monday, the ROBOR 3M was 2.22%, up from 2.13% on Friday.

The increase came as the central bank drew over EUR 7.7 billion from local banks in the last two weeks to drain the liquidity from the market and increase the cost of lending, in an effort to curb the rising inflation rate. At the beginning of April, the BNR board maintained the monetary policy rate at 2.25% per year but said it would make efforts to keep the effective rates in the market close to this level.

One year ago, the ROBOR 3M was just 0.87% per year.

editor@romania-insider.com