Slovenia’s banking sector retains large state ownership, lags behind its European competitors and the prospects for modernising it through privatisation are poor.
Slovenia’s finance minister Andrej Bajuk admits that the major Slovenian banks such as Nova Ljubljanska banka (NLB) are performing way below their potential but he says that EU directives on supervision of banks is holding up further privatisation. The government is negotiating with KBC of Belgium over whether it can increase its stake in NLB above the current 34%. The state holds 35.4% plus a golden share in NLB, which has a dominant 40% share of the market.
