During the last decade several CESEE countries built up high external liabilities vis-à-vis foreign banking sectors, with Austrian banks being important creditors. The provision of crossborder credit allowed for rapid financial deepening in many of these countries but also led to a build-up of...

Largely thanks to the recovery of the real economy, the situation of Russian banks has improved again. After month-on-month loan growth had quickly ground to a halt in late 2008, banks contributed to Russia’s deep economic slump in 2009. The share of nonperforming loans had tripled to 10% of...

In the course of the boom years from 2004 to 2008, Serbia accumulated sizeable macrofinancial imbalances, which made the country vulnerable to external shocks during the global crisis and rendered the process of crisis management more complex. As these vulnerabilities materialized, Serbia had to...

Since the onset of the global financial market turbulence in mid-2007 there have been concerns whether and to what extent the unfolding liquidity squeeze may affect banks in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE). In this note, we present systematic regional and cross-country...

Following a sharp recession in 2009, the Ukrainian economy recovered in 2010 and 2011. In particular in 2011, domestic demand-led growth was accompanied by widening external imbalances. The economy’s external vulnerabilities – related to the current account deficit (2011: 5.6% of GDP) and...

The Czech Republic and Slovakia belong to the small and increasingly concentrated group of countries in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) whose banking markets have continued to generate substantial profits for Austrian banks also after the outbreak of the financial crisis in...

12% of all Austrian households reporting a housing loan in a 2004 financial wealth survey had borrowed in foreign currency. Given the importance of such “household carry trades,” their peculiar character, and immediate policy concerns, too little is known about the attitudes and...