BNR's Isarescu: Romanian financial market is slightly unbalanced; 80pct of financial assets belong to banks

The financial market of Romania is slightly unbalanced, with a massive dominance of banks, National Bank of Romania (BNR) Governor Mugur Isarescu said on Thursday in a conference at the Academy of Economic Studies.

"We don't have an over dominance, but I would say it is a massive dominance of banks in the financial system of Romania. 80 per cent, even more, of the total financial assets of Romania belong to banks. This is not necessarily and advantage. It isn't an advantage to us, those representing the banking system, either. We have a slightly unbalanced financial market. It is important for banks to have, not necessarily putting pressure on them, but to have alternatives both for banks and for banks' customers and for anyone, for the real economy, to have much more developed non-banking financial segments," Isarescu said.

According to him, the financial markets are essential to economic development.

"The stock exchange, the non-banking financial markets also have what Romanians have many times understood: stock market games, speculations, but, in the first place, they are essential to economic development. They represent funding alternatives, essential elements for deepening the financial markets. Without deep financial markets we cannot spread the risks, we cannot control them and so on," the BNR Governor also said. AGERPRES