Banks hide EUR 50 mil - NBS introduces strict monitoring of financial institutions in Serbia

During the last weeks, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) has been intensively working on the analysis of 13 commercial banks because of the suspicion of data validity showed in delivered business reports and the difference between delivered and real situation is some EUR 50 mil, today's Blic reports.

According to this daily, both foreign and domestic banks with different market share are under monitoring.

Governor of NBS, Jorgovanka Tabakovic, explained for Blic that these are regular controls.

- We are carrying out regular monitoring measures. No one is spared, we are not sending any signals, we are only doing out job - Tabakovic said.

This daily, hhowever, reports, according to the banking circle sources, that control of banks in Serbia have been significantly increased.

A lesson with respect to the attention when it comes to affairs in banking sector has been paid with some EUR 200 mil, from the budget paid losses of Agrobanka and Developmental Bank of Vojvodina.

The informed claim that the state, apart from that payment directly from the budget, spent some EUR 400 mil more on rehabilitation of these two banks.

The state, in these cases, covered all minuses of commercial banks although its legal commitment is to guarantee and in cases of bankruptcy of commercial bank to pay off deposits in individual amount of up to EUR 50.000, Blic reports.

However, in the formulation of the budget revision which has recently been adopted in the Serbian Assembly, as well as of anti-crisis measures, decision that the budget does not cover any losses exceeding legal obligation has been defined as one of the important items.

This means that bankruptcy of any bank would be followed by losses of all those who have deposits of more than EUR 50,000 there. The International Monetary Fund in its report has recently warned of potential instability in banking sector.

- The financial sector in Serbia is stable. Capitalization and liquidity indicators are high. However, recent data indicate a weakness of some state-owned banks. Struggle with factors which hinder growth of credit and reduction of banking sector sensitivity are priorities - the experts in the fund concluded.

In the past year, according to the ABR, 32 banks operated in Serbia, 22 of which had positive results while 10 of them generated losses.

Banks which generated the highest profit last year were Banca Intesa with RSD 9.49 billion, Raiffeisen with RSD 5.78 billion, UniCredit with RSD 4.4 billion, Commercial Bank with RSD 4.12 billion and Aik Bank with RSD 3, 64 billion.

Banks which generated the highest losses last year were Development Bank of Vojvodina with RSD 14.4 billion, NLB bank with RSD 4 billion, Alpha Bank with RSD 2.9 billion, Vojvodjanska banka with RSD 1.9 billion and Piraeus Bank with RSD 1.3 billion.