Page 83 - Central & Southeast Outlook 2020
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5.10 Finance - Serbia
Serbia’s banking sector remained stable in 2019 and had total assets worth RSD3,982bn (€33.89mn).
The country’s narrowest money supply aggregate M1, which includes currency in circulation and dinar sight deposits, climbed 18.1% y/y to RSD835.44bn in October.
Dinar sight deposits rose 18.9% y/y at end-October, totalling RSD644.7bn. The strong M1 expansion contributed to a 19% y/y growth of M2 to RSD1,099.45bn in October. The broadest aggregate M3 increased 11.9% y/y to RSD2,711.9bn.
The government is expected to complete the privatisation of the country’s second-largest bank, Komercijalna Banka, in 2020.
The tender was called in June and attracted initial interest from seven candidates. In September, Serbia received four non-binding offers for Komercijalna Banka, including from Slovenia’s Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), which was reportedly the best offer. Raiffeisenbank, Serbian businessman Miodrag Kostic’s AIK Banka and a US-European consortium comprising Ripplewood Advisors, Serbia’s Direktna Banka and Greece’s Eurobank have also expressed interest in bidding for Komercijalna Banka.
However, in November, the government extended the deadline for submission of binding offers in order to attract more quality offers until December 16.
Meanwhile, the government has gradually been buying up the stakes of other shareholders in the bank and now owns 82.23% of the ordinary shares of Komercijalna Banka.
5.11 Finance - Slovenia
Slovenia’s central bank imposed tighter measures to restrict the “excessive growth” of retail lending,which exceeds 10%, starting from November 2019. According to the new measures, the ratio of the annual debt cost to the annual net income of the borrower (DST) may not exceed 67%.
The party of Slovenia’s Prime Minister Marjan Sarec urged the central bank in November to put the new restrictions on consumer loans on hold, saying the measure will hurt many citizens.
The bank lending rate in Slovenia averaged 4.46% from 2003 until
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