Bank Austria sees sluggish credit growth - paper
“We expect a maximum credit growth of 2 percent over the
next few years. We would really like to see more demand,” he
said in comments published on Friday.He said he did not believe that any of Austria’s top three
banks — Bank Austria, Erste Bank and Raiffeisen Bank
International — would need more state aid.It has been a turbulent week for Austria’s banks, which are
the biggest lenders in central and eastern Europe.Erste said on Monday it faced a large full-year loss after
taking hits on foreign-currency loans in Hungary and euro zone
sovereign debt.Raiffeisen predicts a significantly worse second half and
Volksbanken (OTVVp.VI) is having an urgent revamp to bolster its
capital.Cernko dismissed rumours that UniCredit might sell Bank
Austria and said its exposure to Greece was not a serious
problem.”Our Greek exposure is only 380 million euros. It is
possible that this could increase by 100 million euros in a
worst case scenario,” he said in an apparent reference to
additional writedowns.
