Banking Supervision in Bulgaria 'Not Strictly Applied' in Past Years

Banking supervision procedures were not strictly applied in Bulgaria in recent years, the head of the country's national auditing body has said.

Tsvetan Tsvetkov, who heads the National Audit Office, has told the Bulgarian National Television that more information about supervision activities carried out at the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), the country's central bank, is to be provided in a report which is being prepared by his agency and which is due in October.

Asked about an example of mismanagement and inefficiency at the Banking Supervision department, he has refused to elaborate.

This comes more than a year after the developments at the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB) which was Bulgaria's fourth-largest lender before being exposed to a bank run and placed under conservatorship.

Since then, supervision officials have been repeatedly blamed for the debacle and for allegedly failing to apply the oversight needed.

The audit that is now being conducted spans between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2014. There have been two heads of the BNB's Banking Supervision Department (Rumen Simeonov and Tsvetan Gounev) for that time. Both have been charged with abuse of office.

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