I agree with the statement of the Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank Dimitar Radev that banks are regaining people's trust. On a system level trust had never been gone. An example could be the situation with CCB when people did not withdraw their money from the system but moved it to other banks. This was said by Levon Hampartzoumian, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board of UniCredit Bulbank before Bloomberg TV Bulgaria this morning.

The banker did not want to generalize the situation after the stress tests because of the large number of banks of various scales on our market.

"In any case stress tests and a crisis lead to the phenomenon of us being more careful. Our clients today are much more cautious than they were in the period before the crisis 2008-2009", explained the banker.

According to him people have learned how to cope with fewer loans and how to manage their money in a more conservative way. "This is good because we no longer consider loans to be the driving force of internal consumption", thinks Hampartzoumian.

When asked to comment on Dimitar Radev's statement that the Bulgarian banking business is subject to consolidation, Hampartzoumian answered: "I agree with this statement because Bulgarian market is rather fragmented in relation to the size of the economy. There are small banks in larger economies but a small bank there means a financial institution with a balance of several billion euro. When income is limited by size there is inefficiency."

He added that these are slow processes in which financial benefits are sought but we can witness such.

The banker is explicit that Bulgarian subdivisions of large European banks are doing well.

"UniCredit Group considers CEE and Bulgaria in particular a key market with a long-term interest. Eastern Europe shows good results on the market and we have good profitability", commented the banker.

More information for media:

UniCredit Bulbank, Identity & Communications Department

Viktoria Blajeva, Phone: + 359 2 9264 993, wjlj/ebwjepwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Beatris Nikolova, Phone: +359 2 9232 528, cfbusjt/ojlpmpwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch