Bulgaria has a new largest bank

The Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) has published data on the banking system for July. The latest shift at the top of the ranking of the country's largest financial institutions by assets is striking. After a month at the bottom, DSK Bank is back at the top.

The BNB provides a breakdown for individual banks only at the end of each quarter, so it is unclear how much DSK Bank's assets have grown to enable it to overtake United Bulgarian Bank (UBB) again.

As of June, the Hungarian-owned financial institution managed assets worth BGN 37.84 billion. During the same period, UBB had assets worth BGN 40.13 billion. In three months, the assets of both banks jumped by BGN 500 million and BGN 1.5 billion, respectively.

It is noteworthy that since the beginning of the year, the two financial institutions have been constantly changing positions in the asset rankings. This competition began with the merger of UBB and Raiffeisenbank, and for the first time, United Bulgarian Bank took the crown at the end of 2024.

BNB data for the entire system show that the assets managed by all 23 banks and branches in the country exceeded BGN 200 billion for the first time (nearly 100% of the expected size of the economy). Loans alone amounted to over BGN 119 billion. The growth was driven by the spontaneous granting of mortgage and consumer loans (a total of BGN 1 billion in one month, of which BGN 730 million were secured by real estate). There has also been an increase in loans to companies, as can be seen from the figures in the BNB's monetary statistics.

Deposits accumulated in banks have increased to around BGN 170 billion (84% of the expected size of the economy for 2025 and a 0.5% decline on an annual basis).

In the first seven months of the year alone, the profits of all banks reached BGN 2.3 billion (6% annual growth).

Translated with DeepL.