The central bank board is expected to discuss new measures aimed at curbing foreign indebtedness of commercial banks. Several days ago, the central bank governor Zeljko Rohatinski said that the bank was considering introducing a requirement for maintaining mandatory reserves for issued securities. The reserves rate might be the same as the marginal reserves requirement, which is calculated from the increase in the banks’ foreign liabilities) or 55%. Rohatinski said the move was aimed at containing the continuing growth of banks’ foreign debt and domestic credit activity. After the increase in the marginal reserve requirement and the minimum required foreign currency claims relative to their foreign liabilities last year, domestic banks found new way of securing funds – through bond issues, Rohatinski said. Raiffeisen launched the subscription for a HRK600 million bond today and Erste bank is also said to be considering a bond issue.
