In the context of the recent developments on the local money and foreign exchange markets, the Supervision Department within the National Bank of Romania invited the managers and treasurers of six commercial banks for discussions. They were asked to provide explanations relating to the interbank market operations as well as regarding the excessive interest rates levels.
At the same time, the NBR also invited for discussions the manager and the treasurer of another bank to clarify the clearing operations the bank has performed with non-resident financial institutions as well as the foreign exchange open positions in the interbank market.
The banks invited for discussions were urged to return to normality.
The NBR reiterates that the latest developments of ROBID/ROBOR quotations represent a temporary and isolated situation.
It should be noted that maintaining a functional relationship in the long run between banks and their customers implies avoiding any unjustified transfer upon the latter of interest hikes as an indirect result of quotations that reflect interbank market disruptions.
With a view to ensuring the normal use of interbank money market indices and precluding the occurrence of similar events, the NBR Board has decided to change the norms on interbank money market operation as follows:
- if the ROBOR interest rate exceeds the NBR's rate on the lending (Lombard) facility by more than 25%, the central bank may temporarily discontinue publishing ROBID/ROBOR indices calculated based on the quotations of participating banks;
- in any such instance, the NBR publishes the ROBID/ROBOR indices determined as follows: ROBID across the entire maturity spectrum, at the level of the interest rate on the central bank's deposit facility; ROBOR across the entire maturity spectrum, at the level of the interest rate on the central bank's lending facility.
The change shall take effect on the business day following the publication in Romania's Official Gazette (Monitorul Oficial al României).