Main Features of Recent Banking Sector Developments in Selected Southeastern European Countries

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative stock-taking exercise of recent banking sector developments in four current EU candidate countries (CC-4), namely the two acceding countries Bulgaria and Romania and the two negotiating candidates Croatia and Turkey. The paper finds that a strong increase in foreign liabilities allowed boosting domestic lending in particular to households. At the same time, banks’ credit risk that results from nonbanks’ foreign exchange exposure has significantly increased. Although in recent years (1) banks’ profitability has increased, (2) their share of nonperforming assets has declined and (3) their capital adequacy ratios can currently be considered as still sufficiently high (despite the recent domestic credit expansion), considerable risks to macroeconomic and macrofinancial stability may arise if foreign liabilities and domestic credit growth continue to increase at such a rapid pace in the future. JEL classification: G21, P34