It is our commitment to provide customers with banking services responsibly so as to ensure that the credit product matches their needs and is in line with their repayment capacity. This was said by Levon Hampartzoumian, CEO of UniCredit Bulbank and Chairman of the Association of Banks in Bulgaria at the conference dedicated to “Consumer Protection in Financial Services and Financial Literacy”, hosted by the Financial Supervision Commission and the World Bank. The concept of responsible lending relates to all aspects and stages of the loan agreement, starting from the advertising of the credit products themselves.

“The mortgage loan crisis in the USA has shown that in some extreme cases irresponsible lending practices, which lead to a faster increase of overindebtedness, may seriously threaten the stability of the financial sector”, commented further Levon Hampartzoumian. According to him after the crisis in 2008 the world has changed and regulations are being recast so as to avert another crisis of this kind.

“Therefore one of the most important things in building the customer relationship is to put trust first. Financial education is essential but we have a long way to go – people have to understand the main economic processes and financial products”, added the Chairman of the Association of Banks in Bulgaria. In his opinion, the changes to the law which concern banks have been adopted hastily without offering any solution to the main problems. Levon Hampartzoumian gave an example with the adopted standard of the mandatory font size of 12 for the loan agreements – a technical requirement which does not automatically lead to improvement of financial literacy.

More information for clients:

UniCredit Bulbank, Call Centre

Phone: 0700 1 84 84

More information for media:

UniCredit Bulbank, Identity & Communications Department

Viktoria Blajeva, Phone: + 359 2 9264 993, wjlj/ebwjepwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Ekaterina Ancheva, Phone: + 359 2 9264 963, flbufsjob/bodifwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch

Magdalena Ivanova, Phone: + 359 2 9232 528, nbhebmfob/jwbopwbAvojdsfejuhspvq/ch