50% of Romanians believe that their financial situation has worsened compared to last year, while 38% have pessimistic expectations and expect the situation to worsen, according to a survey conducted by CEC Bank in partnership with bank comparator FinZoom.ro.

The main reason for concern is the rise in energy prices, which was indicated by 38.5% of respondents, which is 60% more than in the same survey last quarter. The next main reasons for concern are the pandemic (16.3% – more than the survey conducted in the first quarter of this year) and risks to the supply of food and essential goods (14.6%).

Concern about the conflict in Ukraine, which was in second place last quarter, dropped to 5th place (a 50% decrease in responses), while the prospect of unemployment worries only 5% of Romanians, and difficulties paying contributions – 6% of them.

In the context of uncertainty and pessimistic prospects, Romanians started saving money. So, if in the first quarter only 47% of respondents said that they collect money every month, now this share has increased to 63%. Most manage to save modest amounts: less than 300 lei per month (28.6%) and from 300 to 600 lei (17.9%). The share of those who declare that they have an emergency fund to cover expenses for 3 months has increased from 28.24% to 36.95%. CEC Bank encourages healthy financial behavior and offers attractive deposit interest rates of up to 7.7% per annum.

Cash remains the preferred method of savings with a weight of around 47% – but lower compared to last quarter, after placement in banks – with a weight of 43.7%, in a context where currency and current accounts have a weight of more than 2 times that of deposits.

Regarding debt, 6 out of 10 respondents took loans, of which 40% borrowed for a house. For the vast majority, making payments shouldn’t be a problem, with more than 60% of respondents who have credit saying debt service is less than 25% of their monthly income. When asked if they had ever had trouble paying their dues, 55% of respondents said they had not, and another 34% said they had sometimes.

The survey was conducted online by Finzoom on behalf of CEC Bank in June on a representative sample of more than 1,390 respondents from across the country.