How attractive the ROL is at the beginning of this year is also verified by the transaction volumes at the exchange offices operating inside banks or not, which have grown faster than usual lately. Whereas the daily operations volume of an exchange office was of about 8m euros a few weeks ago, it has risen to 12-14m euros in the meantime.
Romanians have indeed been going to exchange offices to exchange their foreign currency more often lately. This is what the banks officials, and the representatives of the central bank are saying, albeit the latter are more interested in where the foreign currency exchanged for ROL actually comes from.
"We have noticed the upward trend of the trading volumes at exchange offices lately. Whereas a bank was buying about $2m through exchange offices over one weekend, it is now getting $6m. It will be interesting to see whether this generalises and in case it does where does the money come from: do Romanians prefer to exchange their foreign currency for ROL now that investments in the domestic currency are more profitable or is this money sent by those working abroad. We'd be glad if it was primarily the latter, " National Bank of Romania (NBR) Governor Mugur Isarescu said.
Foreign currency inflows from those working abroad who did not forget about those back home amounted to some $2bn last year, but could go up given that work force migration is on the rise.
"Volumes (of operations i.e.) going through our exchange offices have increased lately. They did not soar, but did go up, though. Figures? I'd say a 15%-20% average would be accurate. Where does the foreign currency people are exchanging come from? I think it comes from those who kept their savings in foreign currency and now that the ROL has become stronger are shifting to the domestic currency, but also from those who work abroad and send money back home," says Adrian Parvulescu, chief dealer with Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR). BCR has the largest network of branches and offices at the moment, therefore it has the most exchange offices.
Banc Post's trading volume through exchange offices followed the same trend. "We had a good month for our exchange offices. Revenues did not double or triple but we can say we saw 30% growth, though. Who is selling foreign currency? Transactions at exchange offices rarely exceed 1,000 dollars or euros. Whether this money comes from savings or from somewhere else, that is hard to say. I don't think anybody spends time looking into this," said Dragos Balaci, dealer of Banc Post, yet another bank with a large network of exchange offices. The third bank in the system, Raiffeisen, said it had not noticed an above the average growth in transactions at exchange offices, though.
oana.nuta@zf.ro
