Market liquidity

Caretaker Finance Minister Rumen Porozhanov has said that depositors may get partial access to their funds at Bulgaria's troubled Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB, Corpbank) in September.

Bulgaria’s central bank said on Friday it has invited the two biggest shareholders in Corporate Commercial Bank to propose rescue options for the troubled lender by end-August.

Letters have been sent to Corpbank’s majority owner Bromak EOOD and the State General Reserve Fund (SGRF) of Oman, the Bulgarian National Bank said in a statement.

The investments in the Romanian real estate market in the first half of 2014 amounted to 432 million euros, the highest figure since 2008, according to an estimation mentioned in a Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) report including the office, industrial, retail and hotel spaces.

One of the biggest banks in Bulgaria is a "hostage" to a political crisis, which caused Bulgarian PM Plamen Oresharski to resign, writes Georgi Kantchev for The New York Times.

The Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) has announced it is to present the results of an inspection at troubled Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB) by the end of this week.

KTB, Bulgaria's fourth-largest bank, fell under special supervision by BNB upon its own request in mid-June, after rumors about its failure triggered an exhaustion of liquidity.

Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) has lowered the benchmark interest rate from 0.05% to 0.03%.

Shares of Bulgaria's First Investment Bank were up 24% as of Monday, 13:00 EEST (11:00 GMT).

Data from the Sofia Stock Exchange, cited by website Capital.bg, came despite Friday's surge of panic among many Bulgarians following rumors spread via SMS and online that the bank could fail.

The information forced scores of people to withdraw their savings.

The malicious rumours from last week caused mass panic and, as a result, thousands of people withdrew their savings (a total of more than 400 million euros) from First Investment Bank—the bank under attack.

The arrested are accused of sending texts and emails warning of bankruptcy and of using social media such as Facebook and YouTube to spread the ill-intentioned rumours.  

The European Commission approved a liquidity support scheme for Bulgarian banks to the tune of BGN 3.3 B, said the Commission in a press statement.

On Sunday (June 29), Bulgaria asked the Commission to authorise the provision of a credit line of  BGN 3.3 B to the banking system in order to respond to speculative attacks that occurred over the past week. 

Central Bank watchers predict that the European Central Bank (ECB) will focus on monitoring the impact of last month’s unprecedented package of measures during this week’s monthly meeting The European Central Bank (ECB) is unlikely to make new policy moves at its monthly meeting this week, focusing instead on monitoring the impact of last month’s unprecedented package of measures.<