Banks are starting to offer competitive interest rates for deposits, exceeding the yields of government bonds, and the interest in them is declining.

After almost two years in which they could not be compared to the state pushed by the "hunger for money", banks are starting to gain ground in attracting resources from the population. Moreover, at the end of February, when we write this material, there are already credit institutions offering net yields for deposits that exceed the offer from Tezaur or Fidelis.

Banks have begun to offer interest rates in close proximity to the yields paid by the state for the bonds issued in the Tezaur and Fidelis programs and, in some cases, even exceed that level. Such a situation has not been encountered for almost two years, since the explosion of deficits and the complicated political situation has caused the state to pay increasingly higher yields to attract resources. A sign that things are calming down is that the trend reversed at the beginning of 2026 and, very likely, the end of the year will surprise with a situation of normality, in which the interest rates paid by banks for deposits will exceed those paid by the state for the issued securities. In fact, the change in trend is also visible from the drastic decrease in interest in state securities, both on the primary market and on the secondary market (in the case of Fidelis, which is listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange). The last listed Fidelis edition attracted far fewer buyers than previous ones. In the stock exchange system, about 12,000 orders were collected, expressing options for the purchase of Romanian state securities equivalent to only 198.26 million euros. This value is 45.68% lower than the aggregated volume of 365 million euros from the first exercise of this year and less than a quarter of the record edition of 863 million euros from February of last year, according to Profit.ro data.

Neither banks nor the state managed to beat inflation in 2025, but medium and long-term securities have a high chance of bringing real gains. Banks are also paying more and more, including on long maturities.

The bad news is that in 2025 neither the state nor the banks managed to offer a real yield to the population, meaning they did not pay interest that exceeded inflation. With a price increase of almost 10% last year, the best offer from the state for one year, about 6.5% in Tezaur and roughly the same in Fidelis, was 3.5 percentage points below inflation. More advantageous could prove to be the Tezaur or Fidelis securities for three years, which at the beginning of last year had an interest rate approaching 7.5%. Even though for 2025 this means a real loss of about 2.5 points, in 2026 the gain will be higher, over 3.5 points, if we follow the National Bank's revised forecast of 3.9% for the end of 2026. Adding a 2027 with an inflation rate of 2.7%, according to the BNR forecast, means another increase of almost 5%, which would make the overall real yield over the three years to be at least 5-6%. It may not seem like much, but in periods of high inflation and massive political and social instability, any positive real yield is good news.

On the other hand, in a rather atypical move, banks have also started to come up with competitive offers for long terms, that is, for deposits of 2 or even three years. More specifically, if in Fidelis we now have an interest rate of 6.15% for a two-year maturity, and in Tezaur the state pays 6.5% for a three-year maturity, banks are already there with the gross interest rate and very close, if we calculate the net interest rate. We mention that, unlike the gains from state securities, the interest paid by banks is taxable. However, we calculated the net interest to have a clearer picture in comparison with the state.

The entire analysis can be found here newmoney.ro