The second annual Banking Summit was held today at the Sava Centre in Belgrade, bringing together numerous participants from the banking sector, as well as representatives of financial institutions and the governors of central banks from Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“The banking sector has proven to be the one that most rapidly adopts trends and innovations in the field of sustainable business. It leads the way in digitalisation and social responsibility,” stated Marina Papadakis, Secretary General of the Association of Serbian Banks (UBS), during the summit’s opening.
She highlighted that the Association of Serbian Banks celebrated its 103rd anniversary this year and announced that, during this summit, UBS would sign a significant cooperation agreement with the International Finance Corporation (IFC). This partnership will launch a multi-year project focused on digital and financial services across the Western Balkans.
Governor of the National Bank of Serbia, Jorgovanka Tabaković, noted at the opening that the technological gap between Europe and the United States persists, and that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has flagged the risk of volatile stock prices among major corporations in developed economies.
Nevertheless, she emphasised that inflation in Serbia is within the target range, the country’s financial stability has been maintained, and economic growth is returning to pre-pandemic levels.
“In May, inflation entered our target corridor of 3% ± 1.5 percentage points, and it has remained within these bounds since then—where it will stay. Inflation trends allowed us to begin easing our monetary policy in June, albeit cautiously. Since then, we have reduced the key policy rate three times by 25 basis points each, bringing it down to 5.75%. We have also preserved the relative stability of the dinar exchange rate against the euro, which remains a crucial pillar of investor and consumer confidence,” Tabaković stressed.
The Governor added that Serbia has continued to see record inflows of foreign direct investment, amounting to €4.467 billion as of 30 November, with expectations that the total inflow for this year will surpass the previous year’s figures.
“Our foreign exchange reserves at the end of October reached a record €28.3 billion, marking an additional increase of 13.6% this year. We also have record-high savings in dinars, which have grown by over 80% since the start of last year, reaching 180 billion dinars,” said Tabaković.
She also pointed out that banks, in the context of declining inflation, began relaxing credit standards at the end of last year, which accelerated credit activity. As of October, credit growth stood at 7.2% year-on-year, with notable increases in loans to businesses (4.9%) and households (9.2%).
(Biznis.rs, 05.12.2024)