State-owned bank CEC Bank, the sixth largest local lender based on its assets, recently sold a package of non-performing consumer loans and credit cards at an 83% discount.

CEC Bank received EUR 20.4 million for the package which had gross value of about EUR 120 million, reports local Ziarul Financiar. The buyer was the Polish loan recovery firm Kruk, according to market sources.

It was not the first time when CEC Bank sold bad loans to Kruk.

The state-owned lender also wrote off loans worth over EUR 261 million in 2016, triple compared to the previous year. The non-performing ratio in the CEC Bank portfolio reached 12% at the end of last year.

Local banks sold EUR 1.4 billion in bad loans in 2016. By comparison, transactions with non-performing loans amounted to EUR 2.5 billion in 2015.

Local banks still have bad loans worth EUR 5.6 billion in their portfolios.

editor@romania-insider.com