Starting on September 30, 2016, Banca Comercială Română has been fully applying the provisions of European Directive 17 on guaranteed loans, implemented in the national legislation by Decree no. 52/2016, which came into effect on September 30, 2016. Directive 17 refers to guaranteed loans and offers customers certain rights, supplementing the legal framework in effect. The decree does not apply retroactively, so the banks are still responsible for identifying sustainable solutions for the customers.

Among the key measures affecting the repayment of the loan, the main ones are: having to inform the customers about the exchange rate fluctuations, limiting the penalty interest in case of overdue payments, cancelling the penalty interest at the beginning of an enforcement procedure, cancelling the early repayment fee. As for the pre-contractual measures, they include: standardizing the guaranteed loan offers, so that customers benefit from transparent and complete offers, thus having the opportunity to compare and select the best one, or having the property assessed by assessors that are members of ANEVAR (National Association of Licensed Assessors of Romania), not just by the assessors approved by the bank.

In the context of European directives supporting the financial service customers, BCR is the first bank in Romania deciding to proactively offer sustainable business solutions for reducing the costs incurred by its customers. Nearly 200,000 BCR customers have benefited, starting in 2009, from refinancing, restructuring, or cost adjustments. In fact, loans totalling over RON 4.5 billion have entered in a cost reduction process.

BCR’s strategy is translated into 10 key commitments with clear benefits for the customers:

1.     Proactive support: 200,000 BCR customers have benefited from refinancing, restructuring, or cost adjustments; 90,000 have benefited in 2015 and 2016 alone

2.     Accessibility: over 150,000 customers have benefited from BCR’s offer for current accounts and free debit cards

3.     Fairness: BCR has cancelled all the transaction fees for the most important banking transactions performed by customers (i.e.: cash withdrawals from ATMs); customers have benefited from over 40 million free transactions

4.     Predictability: BCR offers fixed-rate or fixed-interest loans to 270,000 customers

5.     Flexibility: BCR has offered solutions for mortgage loans after the Giving in Payment Law came into effect (reducing the down payment from 35% down to 15%)

6.     Protection: Coverage for any type of risk during the repayment of the loan

7.     Openness: Active support for the underprivileged

8.     Responsibility: Guide for responsible loans

9.     Competence: Over 3,000 highly-trained employees for satisfying the customers’ needs

10.  Education: Training 1,000 employees to become financial education trainers in schools, universities, and companies

Dana Demetrian, Retail Vice-President at BCR: “An honest relationship between the bank and the client leads to finding sustainable solutions and a constructive development for both parties. We made 10 key commitments, and the results are translated into clear benefits for the customers: transparency, protection, education, reduced costs.”

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Banca Comercială Română (BCR), a member of Erste Group, is the most important financial group in Romania, including universal bank operations (retail, corporate & investment banking, treasury and capital markets), as well as companies in industries such as leasing, private pension, and mortgage banks. BCR is the no. 1 bank in Romania based on the value of the assets (EUR 14.4 billion), the no. 1 bank based on the number of customers and the no. 1 bank for the savings and loan segments. BCR is the most valuable financial brand in Romania by customer trust and by the number of people for whom BCR is the main institution for banking services.

BCR offers its entire range of financial products and services by means of 22 business centres and 23 mobile offices dedicated to companies and 510 retail units in most of the cities throughout the entire country with more than 10,000 inhabitants. BCR is the no. 1 bank in Romania on the banking transaction market, BCR customers benefiting from the largest national ATM network - more than 2,000 dispensers - and the largest national POS network - 13,500 credit card terminals, as well as from comprehensive Internet banking, phone-banking and e-commerce services. 

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Erste Group is one of the main financial service providers in the Eastern part of the European Union. 46,500 employees serve 16.2 million customers within 2,800 branches in 7 countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia). At the end of the first quarter of 2015, Erste Group had total assets amounting to 202.6 billion Euros and had a cost/income ratio of 56.1%. The Tier 1 Common Capital Ratio (Basel 3 completely implemented) amounted to 10.2%.

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BCR - External Communication

Ionuţ Stanimir, e-mail: ionut.stanimir@bcr.ro

This information is also available on our website: www.bcr.ro

For details regarding the BCR products and services, please use the following contact methods

InfoBCR

Website: www.bcr.ro

Email: contact.center@bcr.ro

TelVerde: 0800.801.BCR (0800.801.227), toll-free number for calls from the national networks