Stamenkovic: Caution in banking sector

BELGRADE - The central bank should be very cautious in running the banking sector so as to prevent any decrease of citizens' trust in banks after the Univerzal Banka affair as it is the fourth bank which went bankrupt, economist Stojan Stamenkovic stated on Tuesday.

At the presentation of the latest edition of the Macroeconomic Trends and Analyses magazine, Stamenkovic warned that Univerzal Banka is the first private bank to go bankrupt and added the problem did not lie in politicians' influence on loan placements but rather in the strong influence exerted by private interest groups on the loan granting policy.

One of the reasons for bank bankruptcy is weak corporate management, Stamenkovic said and underscored that in such cases, the state suffers the biggest damages caused by payment of insured deposits.

Stamenkovic said that there are no signs that any other bank may go bankrupt but the situation calls for extreme caution so as to prevent the destabilisation of the banking sector which is one of the most stable fields in the country's economic system.

Some ten days ago, the National Bank of Serbia revoked the operating licence of Univezal Banka and in the past year,other banks which went bankrupt comprise Agrobanka, Privredna Banka Beograd and Razvojna Banka Vojvodine.

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