Offices of Bulgaria's Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB) and its subsidiary Credit Agricole will remain closed at least until September 21, Bulgarian National Bank informed Tuesday.

After Bulgaria's President, political leaders and other officials agreed Monday that Bulgaria should take immediate steps to join Europe's Single Supervisory Mechanism, Bulgaria's National Bank (BNB) has already contacted the Executive Board of the European Central Bank as part of the preparation for the talks between Bulgaria's president and the president of the ECB to start the application procedure.

BNB has started talks with the chairperson of the European Banking Authority Andrea Enria to initiate a review of the quality, capacity, practices and procedures of the Banking Supervision Department of BNB. The results will be publicly announced, the bank's press office informed Tuesday.

Due to the lack of agreement on the legislative approach proposed by the Central Bank and the government, previously discussed with experts from the main parliamentary political forces, to find solution to the problems in the banking group KTB both for businesses and citizens who have deposits larger than BGN 196,000, Bulgarian National Bank continues working on the special supervision procedure, the official message on BNB's website reads.

Under the current legal basis, the maximum period of special supervision is up to 6 months, but in this case BNB has imposed a period of three months. Under the current legislation deposits up to BGN 196 thousand are guaranteed by the government, however three days ago the Minister of Economy and Energy Dragomir Stoynev commented that this must change, as many state-owned companies would lose their accounts at KTB. Legislative changes to raise the threshold of government-guaranteed deposits have already been proposed by various political forces, however they were opposed by several parties, Mediapool.bg reminds.

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