The Executive Board of the Association of Banks in Bulgaria (ABB) expresses the satisfaction of the banking community with the approval by the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) of the ABB’s proposal to extend the deadline for submitting requests by bank customers under the Procedure for deferral (“Procedure for Deferral and Settlement of Liabilities Payable to Banks and their Subsidiaries – Financial Institutions”) by 90 days.
The proposal of the Executive Board of the ABB to the BNB was submitted after coordination with the members of the Association and it is taken in relation with the decision of the European Banking Authority (EBA) of June the 18th 2020 to extend the deadline for the application of the EBA Guidelines on Moratoria (EBA/GL/2020/02) until September the 30th 2020.
Pursuant to item 2 of the Additional Provisions of the Procedure for deferral approved by the BNB and applied by the banks, any changes in it, including the terms, shall be applied after the explicit approval by the Bulgarian National Bank and such a decision was taken by its Governing Council on July the 9th 2020.
The agreed extension of the Procedure’s deadlines will allow banks to continue to support the economy and their customers, given the situation caused by the spread of the coronavirus.
For the nearly three-month validity period of the Procedure for deferral, over 80,000 loans of bank customers have been deferred, with a total value of over BGN 6 billion, constituting almost 10% of the banks’ loan portfolio. For banks in Bulgaria, this shows the significant success of the measure proposed by the ABB and approved by the BNB to alleviate borrowers during the pandemic.
