Page 78 - Central & Southeast Outlook 2020
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    September. Loans accelerated by 5.7% y/y to BAM20.44bn, after rising by 5% y/y in August.
Household loans increased by 7.7% y/y in September, after rising by 7.5% y/y in August, reaching BAM9.86bn. Corporate loans moved up by 4.4% y/y in August to BAM9.36bn, accelerating from a 4.1% y/y rise in August.
 5.3 ​Finance - Bulgaria
       Bulgaria is aiming to adopt the euro, and​the main challenge for Bulgaria in 2020 will be to prove it can join the European Banking Union.​To get approval from the European Central Bank (ECB), Bulgaria must implement its recommendations following stress testing of six Bulgarian banks, which found capital shortfalls at two of them, First Investment Bank (FIBank) and Investbank.
The Bulgarian banking sector remains stable and has been posting robust growth. Banks’ combined net profit stood at BGN1.39bn (€649mn) in the first ten months of 2019 compared to BGN1.38bn in the same period of 2018, according to the latest available central bank data.
The banking sector's net operating revenue expanded to BGN3.52bn through October, up from BGN3.45bn a year earlier. Gross interest slightly increased to BGN2.56bn from BGN2.52bn in the first ten months of 2018.
The banks' total assets increased to BGN113.3bn at the end of October, from BGN103.19bn a year earlier.
 5.4 ​Finance - Croatia
       The latest data from the central bank shows that ​Croatian commercial banks (not including savings banks) posted total pre-tax profit of HRK5.31bn in January-September 2019,​slightly up compared to the same period of 2018. This continues the increasingly healthy results achieved by the sector since the resolution of the debt crisis at conglomerate Agrokor that hit the economy as a whole in 2017, and dented demand for corporate lending.
The highest pre-tax profits were reported by UniCredit’s Zagrebacka Banka and Intesa Sanpaolo’s Privredna Banka Zagreb, while only Croatia Banka reported a pre-tax loss for the period.
“The banking sector remains profitable, highly capitalised (the capital adequacy ratio stood at close to 23% in June), very liquid and with
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