Bank of Slovenia co-organises European Banking Institute’s banking conference
In conjunction with the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Law and the European Banking Institute, on 19 October 2018 the Bank of Slovenia organised a conference entitled What future for small commercial banks in Europe? In his welcoming address, Primož Dolenc, the deputy-governor of the Bank of Slovenia, highlighted the conference as addressing issues of great relevance, particularly for economies with banking systems similar to Slovenia’s.
“The balance sheet total of the Slovenian banking system is around EUR 38 billion, a small figure within the European framework. In this environment we have about 15 operating credit institutions, struggling to survive in tough competition. However, size needs to be viewed in relative terms: all Slovenian banks are treated as small domestic lenders according to SSM categorisation, but still we have bigger and smaller banks from the perspective of national financial sector,” said Mr Dolenc. At the same time he emphasised that from the perspective of the economy it is important that we have banks of differing sizes and profiles to provide their services to businesses and individuals. For the regulator and supervisor, the number of banks in an individual economy is not of great importance: the key is that the active banks have viable business models and meet all regulatory requirements with regard to capital, liquidity, AML/CFT, etc.