LM Legal Services Blog

The collapse of the banks in the West is a serious warning for the future of Bulgarian banks. In the last three-four years, the Bulgarian banks enjoyed enormous profit and record growth levels but the world financial crisis is going to put an end to this.

Almost all Bulgarian banks have started to change their development policy following September, 14.  Almost all plans for the opening of new branches have been frozen. The major problem in the banking sector is the lack of fresh money. The foreign financing has stopped and now all Bulgarian banks have focused on the domestic market to keep their growth. It is expected that a within a year a real war to attract deposits of new clients will unleash and the perks for the clients will include holidays abroad and golden watches.

However the biggest loser will be the business and the ordinary consumer. Many banks have changed their policy to attract new clients and now focus on keep the reliable clients with a good track record. It will be very difficult to get a credit if you are a new company. The price of this will be high for the Bulgarian economy – so far the banks have been the major force of the economic growth.

According to professor Minasian, it is likely that the Bulgarian economy might suffer a mini-recession in 2009 similar to the one in the much bigger economies, but in a much smaller scale.  There are investments in the Bulgarian economy and they lead to an increase of the total demand, however, the increase of the GDP is not that fast the levels remain modest. The only logical conclusion is that the investments do not generate the necessary economic growth as they are not in production but in properties.

Despite the steady growth of the Bulgarian economy, the international financial crisis is unlikely to miss Bulgaria. The Bulgarian economy is not dependent on the US economy, however 2/3 of the Bulgarian trade relations are with the EU countries, where the signs of recession are rather obvious.  According to the experts the recession will affect Bulgaria in 1 -1.5 years.  It might start in the winter when household expenses are higher, as well as the inflation.  The economic growth is likely to stop due to the slowing down of the property market and the interest increase.