LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Slovenian banks have no liquidity problems at present, 15 months after they were rescued by the state, central bank governor Bostjan Jazbec told Slovenia's parliament on Friday.
The government had to pour more than 3 billion euros into local banks in December 2013 to stop them collapsing under bad loans, narrowly avoiding an international bailout.
Asked by parliamentarians whether any local banks, which are mostly state-owned, will need a future capital injection, Jazbec said: "I can only say that at the moment all Slovenian banks fulfill capital requirements and that none of them has any liquidity problems."
Jazbec, who also sits on the ECB governing council, once again denied that central bank mishandled data when preparing the bank rescue, telling parliamentarians there were no irregularities in the process that erased some 600 million euros of subordinated bonds and the shares of about 101,300 investors.
Rebuffing calls from some lawmakers to keep most banks in state hands, Jazbec said the government had promised to gradually sell its stakes under the rescue deal approved by the European Commission.
The government at present controls about 60 percent of the local banking sector but hopes to sell the second largest bank, Nova KBM (NKBM), in the coming weeks. NKBM was among the banks rescued by the state in 2013.
The Bank of Slovenia aims to establish a bank rescue fund by the end of March to limit the state's exposure in any future crisis.