BELGRADE (Serbia), May 17 (SeeNews) – Austria's Erste Bank plans to boost its market share in Serbia by acquiring one of the larger local lenders, Slavko Caric, CEO of the bank's Serbian unit, said on Tuesday.
This is in line with Erste's strategy to be among the top three banks in each country where it is present, Caric told B92 in an interview.
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Erste's Serbian unit - Erste Bank Novi Sad - is the 10th largest out of 30 lenders in the country, according to central bank data. The top three lenders in Serbia are Banca Intesa Beograd, majority owned by Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo, 41.7% state-owned Komercijalna Banka and Italian-owned UniCredit Bank Serbia.
According to Caric, Erste is looking to buy “at least a bit larger” lender than its Serbian subsidiary, but there haven't been any opportunities for an acquisition yet.
Ceric expects legal changes in Serbia to allow financial institutions other than banks to facilitate bad loan clearance and to motivate the lenders for more debt write-offs. Presently, banks are obliged to pay capital gains tax on every write-off, which accumulates extra expenses, he explained.
Ceric also predicted that interest rates on deposits will continue to fall, following the lower interests on loans.