George Călinescu, Deputy CEO – CFO, took part in the Deloitte CFO Summit 2024. A few of his remarks on lending in 2024 and this year’s macroeconomic backdrop, as reported by ZF, are below.

• We believe that, from a macroeconomic standpoint, 2024 will be a relatively good year. You’ve seen the forecasts, including across Europe; even though some scenarios consider possible delays in interest-rate cuts and, accordingly, in the acceleration of positive developments in the economy, the base case is that rates will decline. Maybe not next month, but sometime around mid-year.
  
  
• We expect lending to grow in 2024. On the one hand, government programs are still in place; on the other, the entrepreneurial sector needs financing to develop. For us, 2023, as you know, brought above-market growth of 12.5%, and looking by segment, both retail and corporate grew above the average of our competitors.
  
  
• We have reached an average of almost 2 million card transactions per day. This shows that banking penetration is increasing, but there is still room to grow, and in the years ahead we will also see growth in activities not strictly related to lending.
  
  
• System-wide NPLs fell from 2.65% to 2.33%, which reflects customers’ repayment behavior: fairly healthy.
  
  
• Challenges this year: I think there will be major differences between sectors and between businesses — we see sectors that are doing very well, but also sectors that are suffering from weaker consumption or because they are not getting paid by the government. The need for digitalization and the speed at which customer expectations are rising call for a tighter alignment between companies’ financing needs and the banking services provided. We will continue to refine BT’s services and products through investments in innovation and digitalization.
  
  

More statements from the conference are available here.