"Romania feels financial crisis mostly at expensive loan level!"

        The international financial crisis will be felt in Romania only on short term, the strongest impact being on more expensive loans and financing of large sums, on Monday said the CEO of the Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR), Dominic Bruynseel."Romania is isolated from the effects of the crisis. The increase of the key interest rate by the central bank protects the banks, which, anyway, are somewhat more conservative. The impact of the crisis will be felt only on short term and in particular on loan prices, which will be somewhat higher, and on larger borrowings," said Bruynseel.The BCR CEO supports the increase of the monetary policy rate by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) to 10.25% per annum and expects it to decrease with the inflation rate.On the other hand, the BCR CEO says that the real estate market will not have to suffer from the recent fall of apartment prices because "demand is still strong and will sustain the growth of the real estate market, which will adjust in the next period".

BCR opened 600 units

On Monday, the Romanian Commercial Bank (BCR) opened its unit number 600 of the 650 that the bank wants to open by the end of this year, announced bank representatives.The "Dimitrie Cantemir" agency is the 111th unit in Bucharest, and BCR spent 30,000 euros to arrange it. "BCR hired 160 employees for the 40 units opened this year," the BCR CEO Dominic Bruynseel said.By the end of 2009, the bank is willing to reach a network of 700 branches and agencies.The BCR financial group increased its net consolidated profit after taxation and payment of minority interests by 63.5% in the first half of the year, to 759.5 million lei (206.6 million), against the backdrop of a solid advance of the incomes from interests