Press release after the Meeting of the Governing Board of the Bank of Slovenia on 24 September, 2013

1) The Governing Board of the Bank of Slovenia discussed the performance of the banks in the current year, developments on the capital market and interest rates in September 2013, and was briefed on a report.

In July 2013 the banks’ balance sheets maintained a similar trend to previous months. Household deposits increased for the second consecutive month. Deposits by the non-banking sector have persistently been increasing in importance as bank funding. The proportion of bank funding that they account for reached 56% in terms of total assets in July 2013, up 12 percentage points on 2008. As the banks have continued to make debt repayments in the rest of the world, their dependence on wholesale funding has diminished, as has their refinancing risk. Foreign banks accounted for just 13.5% of the Slovenian banking system’s funding in July 2013, compared with 34% before the outbreak of the financial crisis.

2) The Governing Board of the Bank of Slovenia adopted the Regulation on documentation for the granting of the authorisation to acquire a qualifying holding by banks and savings banks, which sets out the documentation that a bank must submit to the Bank of Slovenia in the event of acquiring a qualifying holding in the financial sector. On the basis of the submitted information, the supervisor will be allowed prior insight into the planned expansion of the bank’s operations into other companies in the financial sector, and the consequences of such expansion, and will be allowed to reject or revoke the authorisation to acquire a qualifying holding in the event of an inadequate risk management system. In connection with banks’ qualifying holdings, in addition to the aforementioned regulation new versions of the Regulation on the reporting of individual facts and circumstances of banks and savings banks and the Regulation on the amounts of annual fees for supervision and fees for decisions on requests for the granting of authorisations were adopted.

3) The Bank of Slovenia is continuing its proactive monitoring and acquisition of information in connection with the investigation of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) into banker Janko Medja and any other persons involved in the case, including Dr France Arhar. Cooperation is proceeding with representatives of the management boards of the two banks where the aforementioned bankers have worked (UniCredit Banka Slovenije d.d. and NLB d.d.), and with representatives of the prosecution service and supervisory authorities. On the basis of its findings the Bank of Slovenia will decide on any further action in accordance with its powers under the Banking Act.