ZAGREB, 9 March 2022 - Croatia's banking system is stable, highly-capitalized and liquid, and the country's integration in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) and efforts to adopt the euro have additional boosted those features, the Croatian Banking Association (HUB) said on Wednesday.
The association underscores that the capital adequacy ratio of all the Croatian banks reached 25.6% at the end of 2021, "making the Croatian banking system one of the best capitalised banking systems in the world and one of the most developed in southeast Europe, which is why the system is fully prepared for the coming challenging period."
Credit institutions in Croatia operated at a profit of HRK 5.6 billion (€750 million) in 2021, which is an increase of 108.8% on the previous year, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) said recently. At the end of last year, 20 banks operated in Croatia, employing 18,200 people.
The HUB's press release reads that the profit of the banks was generated by an increase in trading revenues and due to small-scale depreciation of financial assets, as a direct consequence of the stronger-than-expected recovery from the pandemic recession in 2020.
"Financial stability is a key prerequisite for the sustainable economic growth, and it is extremely important in the crises that we have been faced with recently," HUB say, pointing otu the example the rapid reaction in the case of resolution of Sberbank Croatia.
HUB also notes that the banking system is making intensive preparations for the changeover from the kuna to the euro.
For more, check out our business section.
