​The Competition Council has not finished processing hundreds of cloned emails from banks as part of two investigations into credit institutions, but hopes to make a final decision by the end of this year. “If we introduce sanctions, they will be large, tens or hundreds of millions of euros. We plan to make a decision this year,” Bohdan Chiritsa, president of the Competition Council, said on Tuesday.

• “The banks have not yet finished processing all the collected data. There are 2 investigations. In one, we consider possible manipulations with the ROBOR index. The second investigation is focused on how banks change customer history data and whether this mechanism of removing a customer who applies to several banks prevents the customer from switching from one bank to another,” Bohdan Chiritsoyu said.

However, Chiritsou said the investigative team had not yet finished processing all the emails received from the banks.

• “There are hundreds of emails. A lot of data has been collected. We cloned the information from the computers, and it is read by e-mail in the presence of the lawyers of the respective banks,” said Daniela Badila, Director General of the Competition Council.

Last September, representatives of the Competition Council conducted surprise inspections at the headquarters of several commercial banks, suspecting that financial institutions colluded among themselves to set interest rates on loans, official sources told Hotnews.

Inspectors of the Competition Council raided the offices of the country’s commercial banks because they were suspected of cartel connection in connection with reports to the Credit Bureau.

In November 2022, the bankruptcy institution conducted surprise inspections of 10 banks suspected of creating a cartel to set the ROBOR index, which is used to calculate part of Romanians’ loans.

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