* Interview with Sebastian Vlădescu, former finance minister
Reporter: What is your opinion on the steps recently taken by Cyprus and what effects will they have on the Romanian banking market?
Sebastian Vlădescu: I think that the situation in Cyprus will have almost no effect on the Romanian banking market. What is happening with Bank of Cyprus (BoC) Romania is minor within the system, and will not present a problem for the Romanian banking system.
As far as I know, the Romanian branch of Bank of Cyprus is not a troubled bank, in fact it is quire solid, at least according to the publicly available data, and I am convinced that it will be acquired. When, by who, how - that is a whole other discussion. (ed. note: the interview was made before the announcement of the National Bank of Cyprus concerning the transfer of the deposits and of part pf the loans of BoC România to Marfin Bank Romania).
If we are speaking about the consequences for the Romanian banking system, I think that they concern the psychology of depositors. Fortunately, over 90% of the Romanian deposits have deposits of less than 100,000 Euros and as a result, most of the Romanian depositors have little reason to be concerned. It's only those people that have deposits of over 100,000 Euros that should worry.
However that a new issue of moral hazard has appeared concerning the status of money in the banks, the deposits.
They say that this moral hazard has been created now, but I say that it existed in the past as well, this is not the first time that depositors in a bank lose money. There have been banks in Romania that have gone bankrupt, and the people have lost their deposited money, just like that.
Also in Romania, in the last 20 years, in a far subtler manner, the citizens have lost significant amounts of their deposits in real terms - we are speaking her
