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September 8th, 2008
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Banking & Finance Headlines

August 8th, 2007 | Current Issue

A is for abacus
Government to boost financial awareness in secondary schools

Time to kiss the heller goodbye
Coin to be retired next year, the national bank says

BRIEFS


DATABASE Insurance companies are going to launch a database this fall that will unify their tracking of traffic accidents, Lidové noviny reported Aug. 7. Jakub Hradec, director of the Czech Insurers’ Bureau, said insurers hope the registry will stop accident-prone drivers from swapping insurance companies to avoid higher premiums.

MORTGAGES The Czech Republic should fear a mortgage crisis like the United States has seen recently, Luboš Smrčka, a lecturer at the University of Economics in Prague, told the daily Hospodářské noviny (HN) Aug. 7. If interest rates continue to rise as wages slows, the market could be in for a shock, he said.
TWILIGHT Komerční banka plans to extend the hours of some branches until 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. one night a week starting in October, HN reported Aug. 6. The bank will launch Saturday operations at 20 to 30 branches. Also, Citibank plans to launch a Prague branch next month that’s open until 8 p.m., and HVB, Česká spořitelna and Živnostenská banka also plan to add evening and weekend hours.
EU FUNDS The country drew 2.1 billion Kč ($102.5 million) more than it contributed to the European Union in the first six months of this year, the Finance Ministry told the Czech News Agency Aug. 2. The surplus is comparable to last year’s and largely due to EU agriculture subsidies. In total, the country drew 17.1 billion Kč, while paying 14.9 billion Kč.
PIVO An interrogation scheduled for this September could cause a break in the long-running “České pivo” case, Czech Television reported Aug. 1. Investigators expect the testimony of Canadian lawyer Irwin Schwartz could provide evidence that managers from the failed bank IPB committed fraud in purchasing shares of the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery with IPB shares. Those shares became worthless with IPB’s bankruptcy in 2000.
MUTUAL FUNDS Czech assets in mutual funds topped 300 billion Kč by the end of June, a growth of 29 billion Kč over last year, according to data released by the Association of Funds and Asset Management and the Association for the Capital Market. Some 167 billion Kč was kept in domestic mutual funds, with the remainder invested abroad.
WARSAW Cyrrus, one the country’s largest stock brokers, has joined the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) as a remote member, the exchange announced July 31. Cyrrus becomes the exchange’s 15th remote member; it is the second Czech brokerage to join the WSE, following Wood & Company.

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