PM wants to warn Romanians about unsafe banks, central bank says system is solid

Prime Minister Mihai Tudose said he would make public a list of banks, active in Romania, that declare no profit, Mediafaxreported. The Prime Minister said he planned to do this because of a duty to tell the population which lenders were not safe. The Government is not happy because many local banks haven't paid any tax on profit in recent years due to high losses reported in the crisis years, which they have used to diminish their taxable profits. “If the banks do not revise their behavior towards Romania and Romanians, I think we have a duty to tell Romanians which are the banks where it is a danger for them to keep their deposits. If a bank does not have a profit and will continue to not make a profit, I understand it has a problem,” Tudose said. He did not provide a date for the list of banks to be made public. Romania's National Bank (BNR) said on August 22 that "there is no reason to worry about the safety of the the population's and companies' deposits kept in banks in Romania." BNR said the Romanian banking sector is “solid” and that the average solvency ratio stood 19.8% at the end of June of this year. This is higher than the minimum regulated value of 8% and than the European average of 14%. In accordance with the European legislation, all deposits of up to EUR 100,000, including the equivalent in RON or other currencies, are guaranteed. At the end of June, 99.65% of the deposits made by individuals at banks in Romania were within the guaranteed values, while the remaining ones were higher. At the same time, 97.57% of the deposits made by legal entities were within the guaranteed limits, BNR said. The Prime Minister’s statement comes after the Finance Minister Ionuţ Mişa said that 70% of the banks in Romania did not pay a profit tax in the past five years. “We dared to attack and perform checks at banks. One of the checks is finished. At one of the banks in Romania, it ended by diminishing the RON 650 million (EUR 142.8 million) fiscal loss and establishing an additional due payment of RON 104 million (EUR 22.8 million). This loss was artificially created and with this check we managed to bring to the surface RON 650 million, plus another RON 104 million. By diminishing its loss, this bank will pay a profit tax in the coming years. […] We have 70% of banks in Romania that did not pay a profit tax in the past five years,” Mişa said at the end of July, quoted by Mediafax. The 36 banks present in Romania had a combined profit of RON 2.71 billion (EUR 595.6 million) at the end of June 2017, according to BNR data.