site.btaBulgarian Banks Ready for Euro Changeover, Banking Sector Represеntatives Say

Bulgarian banks are ready for the euro changeover and there is a lot of work and investment from the banking sector behind the accession process, banking sector representatives said during 15th edition of The Noise of Money Forum, organized by the Profit.BG website. 

The Deputy Director of Retail Banking at UniCredit Bulbank and CEO of UniCredit Consumer Finance, Ekaterina Panayotova, sees the role of banks in educating and informing the public about what the changeover will mean. Banks are ready to accept cash payments and make currency exchanges, ATMs will be set up to return euro change, Panayotova said. Most of the process will happen digitally, she added.

The CEO of Bulgarian-American Credit Bank, Ilian Georgiev, urged businesses to get acquainted with the Euro adoption Act and the requirements it will have.

Bulgarian Banks are expected to encourage customers to get rid of the leva cash and bring it to the banks. Thus, when the euro is introduced, the exchange can be done easily and without problems, rather than having long lines at bank counters for the exchange, Georgiev said.

Asen Yagodin, member of the Board of Postbank, said that banks never stop to monitor key indicators related to mortgage lending. In his words, the banking sector is not overheating with lending. In the last 10 years, the penetration of lending in the public  in relation to GDP has been below 30%, compared to an EU average of about 60%. The minimum wage in this period has increased 3 times, the average 2.7 times, while at the same time the growth of consumer and mortgage loans is less, Yagodin pointed out.