Romanian consumers who have resorted to the facility offered by the state to postpone rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic and have postponed their monthly rates will be reported by creditors to the Credit Bureau. However, the Credit Bureau and the banks claim that these notifications are not important and will not have negative effects on customers. The Credit Bureau announced how the information regarding the loans granted to individuals who are accepted by the banks, the request to suspend the obligations to pay the due installments, according to Ordinance 37/2020, will be registered. This is despite the fact that neither in the ordinance for postponing the installments, nor in the application rules, anything is mentioned regarding the reporting to the Credit Bureau. Thus, the reporting of loans registered with the Credit Bureau and suspended from payment will be done by entering the comment "Suspension of payment".
However, the Credit Bureau does not inform whether the debtor's reporting in this database is considered overdue and how customers may be affected by the statement of deferral of rates when applying for a new loan. It is uncertain at this time whether the term "suspension of payments" could be considered by banks as an additional element of risk in the decision to grant a new loan to a customer. Romanians can still request until June 15, 2020 the postponement of the installments, if they are unable to pay. The latest statistics show that 152,000 customers of banks (individuals and SMEs) benefited from the deferral of rates by up to 9 months, amounting to loans worth 3.3 billion lei.
The Consumers United Association asks the authorities to clarify whether these actions of the banks are made without legal cover or are abusive. At the same time, creditors must be transparent with consumers about how these entries will affect the credit risk assessment of debtors.