Individual clients and large companies will have to meet stricter criteria in order to receive loans in the second quarter of the year compared with the last few months, according to a NBR (National Bank of Romania) poll.

Only small firms are expected to benefit from a slight relaxation of some criteria, but only for short-term loans.

This comes in the wake of the introduction of more restrictive lending conditions in the first quarter of the year.

Since the beginning of the year, the NBR has conducted quarterly polls, querying the top-ten banks in the lending sector on market dynamics.

According to data from the central bank, the players included in this poll accounted for 80% of the lending granted last year to non-financial companies and individual clients.

The NBR survey indicates that bankers are considering much stricter lending conditions for large companies, both in terms of long-term loans, and short-term loans.

The difference between the share of banks that expect stricter lending conditions and those that expect conditions to relax stands at 40%.

The same goes for conditions for individual clients. The difference is larger in the case of mortgage lending (above 40%). Stricter lending conditions are expected for consumer loans, but the difference is close to 20%.

The NBR analysis reveals that in the first quarter of the year lending conditions remained largely unchanged compared to the end of last year.

"The development of lending conditions and terms in Romania appears out of sync with that of the banks in the eurozone, which means the stricter lending conditions announced by parent banks do not apply at a similar rate, or even not at all, to Romanian subsidiaries," say NBR analysts.

They explain this development by the fact that Romania is still perceived as a market that allows banks to derive s