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As the man responsible for Slovenia's banking supervision, Samo Nucic does not enjoy great popularity among the country's bankers. The Bank of Slovenia's deputy governor justifies some of the bank's more controversial policies to Helen Davidson
Finance minister Mitja Gaspari has stated that he wants to see more aggressive consolidation among Slovenia's banks. Is the central bank encouraging this?
Of course. In the first half of this year we saw the establishment of some banking groups, and we expect this could be the first step toward greater consolidation. But we want this to be carefully regulated, and we want some real coherence within those banking groups.
That is why we insist that the parent bank in a group not only has a minimum 40% stake in the daughter banks, but that also additional conditions about the regulation of their relations are met, for example ensuring adequate liquidity.
We also want to see a joint strategic approach, so they can work together on new products and information technology. We really push banks to sign agreements on these matters. Our position is that if they want to link up, that's fine. But they have to show us they will co-operate with each other to contribute to better efficiency.
Out of Slovenia's 28 commercial banks, how many do you think will be operating independently in five years' time?
You can already see that a number of banks - particularly the smaller ones are starting to specialise. The fashion for universal banks is now disappearing. I can't give you an exact number, but the figure will probably be around five or six of the bigger universal banks, with...