First Investment Bank

The Bulgarian government has allowed the Finance Minister to end a contract with First Investment Bank (Fibank) under which the financial company received state aid to prevent a collapse.

The contract, approved by the European Commission, has been already fulfilled on behalf of Fibank, the cabinet notes in a press statement.

Bulgaria's First Investment Bank (Fibank) has repaid the BGN 1.2 B state aid, which was provided to the bank in June 2014.

The repayment was made in compliance with the plan approved by the European Commission in November 2014. The international rating agency Fitch confirmed the bank's ratings with Stable outlook.

A meeting of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) taking place June 17-26 has included a show of succesfull models of Bulgarian corporate governance.

Marieta Zaharieva has been appointed Executive Director of the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's cut Bulgaria's sovereign credit ratingto BB+ from BBB- with a stable outlook.

The Supervisory Board of the state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) has conducted a top-level reshuffle.

Angel Gekov and Iliya Kirchev will replace the outgoing Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer Dimo Spasov and the member of the Management Board and Executive Director Ivan Hristov.

Bilian Balev remains part of the governing body of the BDB.

Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov has announced he had approved measures to step up security at bank offices where deposit holders will have access to their savings at Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank or KTB).

Thursday, December 4 is the first day of reimbursement, with deposit holders allowed to manage their assets over the next five years.

Bulgarian police has beefed up security measures relating to the upcoming repayment of state-guaranteed deposits with the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank.

Bulgaria is one of the sixteen countries subject to EU monitoring over macroeconomic imbalances, the EU Commission's Alert Mechanism Report 2015 shows.

The commission underscores some of Bulgaria's most urgent issues such as unemployment and problems in the financial sector.

The European Commission said on Tuesday it has found that liquidity support granted by Bulgaria to First Investment Bank (FIB) was in line with EU state aid rules.