The Serbian phenomenon, that amidst the general bankruptcy of the state, economy and citizens - commercial banks have significant liquid, but uninvested assets, should be analyzed more thoroughly. Perhaps it is not enough just to say that this is a consequence of the high level of problematic (non-performing) loans in the total placements of banks, of 23 percent, because in countries with a similar degree of this risk - the level of "free" bank capital that requires interest is still not as high as it is this is the case in Serbia.
Namely, the level of "liquid assets" of banks in our country is close to 38 percent, and banks have 27,4 billion euros at their disposal (Danas, January 10-11). Of course, only theoretically, this would mean that over nine billion euros should be "sold" to someone in a market that is hungry for every coin - but potential "buyers of money" either do not like its high price (interest), or they do not have a good business perspective for returning the borrowed money .
In the case of citizens, this caution towards loans is mostly on their side, and in the case of businesses - caution is on the bankers' side. So, realistically speaking, the question arises as to where this mutual "caution" comes from to activate (let's say, for example) about 4-5 billion euros that are not blocked by credit-monetary policy measures (in order to preserve the stability of the banking system). It's not just that the citizens are over-indebted, and that the economy in Serbia has collapsed so much that no one sees how it will earn at least material costs in the coming months. The problem starts with the rule of law, that is, with the judiciary (through which means of securing payment are activated), and then the problem moves through property and real estate registers (which cannot be sorted out), so that everything ends in the aforementioned "lack of perspective". – which is the most complex phrase in this matter.
In this most complex problem, the problem of perspective, various risks are "collected" - from the foreign policy orientation of the country in which the work is done, dominant domicile ideological stereotypes, assessment of the relationship of political forces on the given public stage, continental events and those in the immediate environment, etc. Of course, in assessing all these risks, bankers do not rely on some kind of separate political and sociological research (this is business, not "measurement of polls" and "analytical wisdom"), but, as they say, they follow certain current parameters, the ratings of countries by well-known agency, assessments of world institutions (IMF, for example), and they also respect the "assessments" of certain "centers of world power".
The fact that these planetary and general "sources for risk assessment" often have wrong insights into the reality on the ground or have wrong assessments of the consequences of certain processes - does not change much in the essence of things, and makes banking an interesting business sport.
Nevertheless, some of the parameters conveyed by the aforementioned article in Danas (which refers to the data of the National Bank of Serbia) should be singled out, in order to get a sense of the "diagnosis" of the above-emphasized phenomenon that there is money, but that money does not reach financially weak "consumers ". For example, something can be concluded from the data that banks in Serbia approved loans for 9,2 billion euros to the economy, around six billion euros to citizens, and four billion euros to the state. The relationship between these three lenders in developed countries is generally different and the state usually does not have such a large share.
As a layman, it is interesting to me that in the liabilities of commercial banks there are "only" 3,6 billion euros of foreign debts, because I thought that there was more, considering that about 80 percent of Serbian banks are owned by banks from abroad. Perhaps there is more foreign capital in the savings position, which until recently was very profitable (compared to yields in other countries) or more and more people are switching to "cross-border" lending, with the assistance of the domicile bank.
When it comes to deposits, I also find it interesting that public companies have 58,4 billion dinars in banks, and all other companies have 415 billion dinars (as stated by Danas). Namely, I believed that public companies have a larger share, and that they all together have more than four billion euros. Once upon a time in the SFRY, as far as I remember, the Ministry of Finance informed the public several times a year about the financial situation in the economy. And today we know little not only about the state of public companies, but we know even less about financial opportunities in the private sector. Perhaps in the latter, the financial situation is even worse than we assume.
(New magazine)
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