Attorney: Banks in Serbia Income from Fees Higher than from Bor Gold Mine   

National bank of Serbia

Attorney Miroslav Zivkovic, a member of the Belgrade Bar Association, on Aug. 9 said that the income of banks in Serbia from fees and commissions was higher than the Bor mining complex’s annual income from gold.  

“It is an enormous profit coming from services which are not regular and which are called ‘fraudulent activity.’ In 2021, banks earned EUR329 million. It is known that in 2021, banks were exerting extreme pressure, primarily through media outlets, and then on the judiciary. First, they pressured the legislative branch, but they were making a lot noise about a large citizen association and a standardized court practice to take into consideration citizens’ claims seeking scrapping of loan processing fees,” Zivkovic said at the Media Center in Belgrade.

Zivkovic said that banks had insisted that claim payments would endanger the banking sector. “They were saying that if claims were to be paid, the state would economically collapse, and now we are seeing the opposite. Banks earned EUR145 million more than in 2020,” he specified.  

Zivkovic stressed that he would seek immediate action of the National Bank of Serbia as banks had been increasing fees and commissions over the past few month. As an example, he cited e-banking which had been free of charge until now. “The National Bank of Serbia has the instruments to make bank reduce certain commissions and to scrap them permanently,” Zivkovic said.