Bulgarian banks’ gross NPLs drop 8% q/q at end-2021

SOFIA (Bulgaria), April 28 (SeeNews) – Bulgarian banks’ gross non-performing loans (NPLs) fell by 8% quarter-on-quarter to 5.0 billion levs ($2.7 billion/2.55 billion euro) at the end of 2021, the central bank said on Thursday.

There was a sharper decrease in the ratio of NPLs in the credit portfolio to 6.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021, by quarterly 78 basis points (bps), compared to a decrease of 38 bps in the previous quarter, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said in a quarterly report on the banking sector’s performance.

Loan sales and write-offs, along with the end of the private credit moratorium in December 2021, were among the factors that justified the above decrease, BNB added.

Net NPLs dropped by 7.7% on a quarterly comparison basis to 2.6 billion levs in the final three months of 2021.

Total accumulated impairment on loans and advances fell by 2.7% on the quarter to 3.6 billion levs at the end of last year.

The total assets of Bulgarian banks were up 2.1% on the previous quarter at 135.4 billion levs as at end- December 2021.

Over the same period, deposits rose 1.9% on the quarter to 115.4 billion levs, on the back of a 19.9% jump in deposits of credit institutions.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)