Abstract. As a result of joining the global trend of the monetary policy modernization, Romania has adopted the inflation targeting strategy in August 2005. Although the implementation conditions have been prepared in advance on the background of a medium-term disinflation process, the National Bank of Romania (NBR) succeeded in reaching the inflation target only in one year (2006). Beyond the inevitable difficulties specific to emerging countries, the implementation of this strategy, that has proved to be effective even in conditions of crisis, was hampered by an unfavourable economic and political environment. In this paper, the authors aim to analyse the responses of the Romanian banking system to the signals of monetary policy sent by the NBR. In order to do this, the dynamics of the non-governmental domestic credit and the interest rates channel have been econometrically tested. The results of the analysis showed a chaotic growth in lending over the last years (2005-2011) in Romania, respectively an uncooperative attitude of the commercial banks on reaching the objectives of the monetary polic.

Keywords: monetary policy; inflation targeting; Granger causality tests; interest rate; commercial banks.