State intervention through guarantee under First Home Programme to decline gradually, as of Jan. 2018

The state intervention through guarantee under the First Home Programme will be reduced gradually, as of 1 January 2018, a press release of the National Credit Guarantee Fund for SMEs (FNGCIMM), sent to AGERPRES on Thursday informs. 

"In accordance with the guidelines and objectives set out under the 2017-2020 First Home Programme Strategy it has been established a way to assess the financiers' activities and adjust the guarantee limits that are earmarked to the financial backers participating in the First Home Program, at the beginning of every calendar year, depending on the share of guarantees granted by each backer in the total guarantees provided under the programme in the previous year. The new capping allocation strategy is in line with the gradual cuts of the state intervention through guarantee, assuming that the mortgage credit market will develop along with the growth of the population's access to standard products of the banks," the document quoting an Order of the Public Finance Minister published in the Official Journal of Romania reveals. 

According to it, taking on a balanced proportion between the contracted loans under the First Home Programme and those contracted in standard conditions offered by financiers is an important part of a public policy to guide the First Home Programme towards supporting some social, well-defined objectives, on a medium and long-term. 

On 6 December 2017, in the Official Journal of Romania No.963, the Public Finance Minister Order No.3097/2017, under which it's approved the procedure and annual assessment criteria of the way to use the guarantee limits by the financiers participating in the "First Home" Programme, which will be enforceable as of 1 January 2018. 

According to the FNGCIMM, this new procedure aims to use more efficiently the caps that are annually earmarked for the First Home Programme, by drawing up some criteria that will lay at the bottom of the assessment of financiers' activity.