Raiffeisen Analyst Doesn’t See Looming East Europe Credit Crunch
February 08, 2012, 11:57 AM ESTBy Zoe Schneeweiss
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Eastern Europe loan-growth data doesn’t point toward a “looming credit crunch,” according to an report by Raiffeisen Bank International AG, the region’s third-biggest lender.
While there are “widespread fears that all of central and eastern Europe and in particular, the sub-regions central Europe and south eastern Europe, will be hit hard by the deleveraging process that is undeniably taking place in Western Europe’s banking sector,” most recent “loan growth developments -- including data from the second half of 2011 -- are not pointing to a looming credit crunch” in the region, Gunter Deuber, an analyst at Raiffeisen in Vienna, wrote in the report.
“The most recent high frequency data shows that loan growth remains at decent levels in most central and eastern European economies given the current economic situation,” Deuber wrote in the report, adding that this held “especially true for Russia and most central eastern countries, with the possible exception of Hungary.” According to Raiffeisen’s definition that region also included Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
The analyst also said that a “certain deleveraging is visible” in countries including Ukraine, Hungary and some south eastern countries, a region which consists of Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Bosnia, according to the report.
All of eastern Europe’s biggest lenders need to raise capital ratios to meet requirements by the European Banking Authority. The biggest banks in eastern Europe by assets are UniCredit SpA, Erste Group Bank AG, Raiffeisen, Societe Generale SA and KBC Groep NV.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Zoe Schneeweiss at zschneeweiss@bloomberg.net
