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Banks shift focus from spenders to savers

Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008

The financial crisis that roiled the U.S. and Europe in the past 17 months had an indirect impact on the Bulgarian banking sector by drying up liquidity, raising the price of resources on the global market and eroding trust between banks.

As a result, the average interest rate went up by 2.14 percentage points on local-currency consumer loans, 1.61 points on corporate loans of up to BGN 1 million and 1.13 points on lev-denominated housing loans.

And while loans grew slower than before, volumes were as big as last year’s all the way through September.

The first signs of the credit crunch looming above the Bulgarian banking sector came in early autumn when lenders suddenly became warier of loan borrowers and replaced loan promotions with mouth-watering deposit offers of up to 10-11% on an annual basis.

In a frenetic chase after savers after foreign bank parents cut down on funding and access to the international market tightened, Bulgarian banks jacked up loan interest rates to levels before the credit boom.

Pushed by soaring risk premium and a growing cost of domestic deposits, the average price of resources for commercial banks rose to 3.65% for October 2008 from an average of 2.92% for 2007.

Still, the combined profit of Bulgarian banks is expected to top some BGN 1.300-1.350 billion in end-November and BGN 1.5 billion for the full year compared to BGN 1.144 billion for 2007.

Source: Dnevnik a.m.