On October 25 at a press conference in Minsk Deputy Chairman of the National Bank Sergey Dubkov reported, that at present time several projects on mergers and acquisitions is preparing to be implemented in the banking system of Belarus.
However, the documents for registration has not arrived in the National Bank yet, he added. "As soon as the documents are submitted, we will inform the public", Dubkov promised.
According to him, the National Bank carries out consultations within the framework of the planned projects on mergers and acquisitions, in order to identify all the risks that arise when merging. "We've had experiences when two banks had been "forced to get married", but eventually the merged bank was bankrupt. We don't want to make that mistake", Dubkov said.
At the same time, he has also named a successful example of combining assets - the merger of Technobank and Belarussian Industrial Bank. "After this merger a new trend was established, where private shareholders decided to unite in order to address the issues of capital", Deputy Chairman of the National Bank said.
He added that the decision on mergers and acquisitions was traditionally accepted by shareholders: "The regulator has to make decisions on mergers and acquisitions, when there is a question of stability, protection of depositors".
According to Dubkov, the main problem is that the financial market of Belarus is represented mainly by banks. "And banks' core product is a loan. In fact, we've always had a quite high loan risk. It's only through development of other financial market segments we see further dynamic development of the banking sector", the representative of the National Bank said.
