NOT A GOOD TIME FOR CREDITING TOURISM

Someone wants to forcefully reshuffle the crediting market in Bulgaria in favour of smaller market players and at the expense of the more powerful financial institutions, MP from the Coalition for Bulgaria Rumen Gechev, one of the authors of the amendments to the Consumer Credit Act, said on April 7, the Banker weekly reports. He noted that every bank client can check if there is an explicit clause about a prepayment fee in their credit contract and if not – switch to another bank. This sounds like a suggestion to debtors to act swiftly in order to avoid being "crushed" by the interest burden of heartless bank creditors. 

The President of the Party of European Socialists (PES) and leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BES) Sergey Stanishev commented on his profile on social networking website Facebook that for years banks have introduced rules for their Bulgarian clients they would not date offer in any other EU member states. 
The CEO of DSK Bank Violina Marinova voiced her complete disagreement with the remarks of Mr Stanishev about foreign banks in Bulgaria. All Bulgarian banks work with a Bulgarian registration, in compliance with Bulgarian legislation, under the control of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), with Bulgarian clients, she said, adding that it is absurd to divide banks into different categories. In her words Mr Stanishev needs to present proof of his thesis. 

The CEO of UniCredit Bulbank Levon Hampartzoumian voiced a similar standpoint. "There are 32 banks on the Bulgarian market, some operate abroad as well, and if Mr Stanishev has any specific accusations against them - we are prepared to discuss them, but only based on facts," he said. 

Ms Marinova also voiced her concern that the new method of interest rate formation would hardly improve transparency as very few people are aware of what the respective indices or data of the BNB or National Statistical Institute (NSI) represent. She also noted that clients would no longer be capable of comparing annual percentage rates (APRs) due to the different bank formulas. As far as the abolishment of the credit prepayment fee for the first year is concerned, the banker confirmed that this would hardly lead to "crediting tourism." She did say that it would probably lead to higher interest rates as banks would have to compensate for their expenses.