| Summary: | The banking system represents the most important component of the financial system, "heart of the economy",
its role being identified, mainly, in two plans. Thus, first of all, it is vital for maintaining a good functioning of the
economy, the National Bank of Romania having prerogatives in ensuring price stability. Secondly, credit institutions,
through their function as financial intermediaries, ensure a real process of financing the needs registered by the
economic environment. Maintaining price stability in difficult economic conditions, of systemic shock, caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic, required the adoption of measures by the National Bank of Romania to mitigate the negative
effects. One of the measures adopted by the central bank during the pandemic was the reduction of the policy interest
rate by 0.5 pp. In this context, from the research carried out on the basis of an econometric analysis, it emerged that
the change in the consumer credit benchmark is also influenced by the positive or negative evolution of other economic
factors, such as the monetary policy interest rate, the variation of the consumer price index and the fluctuation of the
exchange rate
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