Crédit Agricole

After three years of pandemic travel restrictions and rocketing energy costs, tourism is back with a vengeance to boost the economies of southern Europe as sun-seekers make up for lost time.

BELGRADE - Raiffeisen bank Belgrade has announced it had successfully completed a legal and operational merger of RBA bank, which began with an acquisition of a 100 pct stake in the bank - the former Credit Agricole Serbia - in April last year.

A few days ago, however, another purchase was announced, so when the merger of Raiffeisen and Credit Agricole Bank is completed, there will be one bank less.
Considering the announcements, there will be more such transactions in the coming months, Novosti writes.

Ljubljana – Slovenia is presenting the framework for its first sustainability bond to investors in a global call on Monday, to be followed by one-on-one calls with interested investors on Tuesday, the Finance Ministry has announced. The issue will depend on the market situation.

Ljubljana – The Finance Ministry has commissioned several international banks to manage a new, 10-year bond with maturity in 2031 and increase a 30-year bond issue due in 2050 in the near future, depending on the situation on financial markets.

The Greek banking system has radically changed over the past two decades. Mergers and acquisitions had already begun in the late 1980s, but it was two significant events 20 years ago that marked the beginning of a process that has led to the consolidation of the country's banking sector in the dominant "big four" (Alpha Bank, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus Bank).

Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo will focus on financing small and medium-scaled enterprises (SMEs), large corporations and big projects in Turkey through its first Istanbul branch, after approval from the Banking Regulating Board (BDDK).

German banks have around 23.5 billion euros ($28 billion) in credit exposure to Greece, but the systemic risk is limited as the biggest commercial banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, hold only a tiny fraction of that, according to figures gathered by Reuters.

Bulgaria is seeking to raise some EUR 1.3 B in new loans from foreign banks by end-2014 to finance budget deficit and provide liquidity support to banks, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Alpha Bank, Greece's fourth biggest lender, opened a voluntary redundancy offer on Monday with a view to cutting 15 percent of its workforce to cut costs under a restructuring plan approved by the EU Commission, an official at the bank said on Monday.