The growth in the number of personal loans is not so much a consequence of "citizens' unreasonable desire" but of the business decisions of bankers, who have to grant loans to those who will repay them.
The relatively poor reform of the real sector, privatisation, the performance of courts and similar factors increase the risk of granting loans to companies and banks do have some reason to avoid them, Kraft said, but added that recent data indicate that the growth of business loans is the same as that of personal loans.
He said this also showed that the government must carefully work on all measures which can increase the efficacy of companies, such as judicial reform, facilitating the opening and closing of companies, reducing subventions to unsuccessful companies, and increasing subventions to education and research.
Despite HNB measures aimed at limiting banks' foreign financing, loan growth rates are still high. Interest rates have not been increased to reduce consumption because banks have enough profits to swallow costs and retain those rates in fighting for market shares.