Croatian Bank Owned By Italians Decides To Give Italians Cheaper Loans Than To Croats

[VetLegion]

Here is what happened. During the last decade, Croatia (emerging from socialism in 1991) has first patched up and then sold most of its socially owned banking sector to foreigners. Nowadays more than 90% of the market is held by Croatian banks that have foreign owners.

This has always aroused suspicion and whining here. People have complained that it is easy to get a loan to buy a foreign car, but hard to get one for starting a business, because foreign banks only want to finance consumption and so on.

I have always defended the privatization of banks. There is sufficient competition, banks are fighting for clients, service has improved and so on.

And now this happens.

PBZ, the second largest bank in Croatia, owned by Italian Intesa Group, has decided to offer Italians living in Croatia cheaper credit than other citizens

http://www.iskon.hr/vijesti/page/2005/11/12/0026006.html

I'm sorry, I have no English link. I'll translate a paragraph:

"Do you wish a home purchasing loan with 5,69% interest instead of 6,05% or 2% less interest on your current account allowed minus (12,99% instead of 14,99%)?

Simply visit PBZ. All you have to do, is be Italian."

These Italian bastards really seem to think they've come to some banana country to make business

[Ecthy]

It's a private company

[VetLegion]

We can always nationalize

BTW., a month or so ago Italians fought tooth and nail to stop some Dutch bank to buy one of theirs. They sure know why they did it

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Re: Croatian Bank Owned By Italians Decides To Give Italians Cheaper Loans Than To Croats

Originally posted by VetLegion
People have complained that it is easy to get a loan to buy a foreign car, but hard to get one for starting a business, because foreign banks only want to finance consumption and so on.

What's the rate of default on business loans in Croatia vs car loans?

For that matter, what's the failure rate for small businesses started in Croatia?

Banks don't arbitrarily prevent people from getting loans unless they think that the borrower will default, or refuse to pay.

Rule #1 of banks: If it's profitable, we do it.

So, I doubt it's racism... there must be some underlying reason for this initiative.

[Boris Godunov]

Well, I've never had a Croat pay back a loan to me.

[Az]

sounds sensible.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ecthy
It's a private company

QFT

This is, incidentally, a good example as to why a healthy economy needs regulation (even if any regulation reminds Vetty fo the USSR). Companies will do whatever they want if they can go unpunished with it.

[Az]

less reason, more trolling

[VetLegion]

STYOM, you're right, the default rate is higher for startup businesses than for homes and cars. Still it is right to be suspicious about foreign banks.

Spiffor, regulation does scream more communism to me, but maybe more will be needed. These banks are having huge profits here and still they are racist

Hopefully there will be enough outrage over this to hurt the bank and make them withdraw their decision. Some of my friends have already decided to close accounts there and open elsewhere (there are plenty of banks to choose from).

Also, this might be unconstitutional, so they could be sued or something.

It's just that when I heard about it my blood started boiling. Nationalist-capitalism is what I would call this. Ugly stuff.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Az
sounds sensible.

Well if someone owns their banks it's the Jews, eh

You can't relate with us. We've been selling everything that was worth something in this country for small money to pay pensions and stuff, and now we not only get sold those services back at market prices, but we also get treated like second class people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

Too much is too much.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
You can't relate with us. We've been selling everything that was worth something in this country for small money to pay pensions and stuff, and now we not only get sold those services back at market prices, but we also get treated like second class people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

You haven't experienced being real second-class consumers.

On your markets, you won't find intoxicated food that has been removed from the western European markets. You won't find fake medication that is actually poisonous. You won't be treated as guinea pigs.

That's for the African consumers.

[VetLegion]

Comrade, we have to do something about this...

[Toby Rowe]

Hi VetLegion,

Dutch and Swiss banks own most of our UK insurance sector these days; the Americans, Germans and French own most of our remaining industry and the Germans, Japanese and Americans own a sizable chunk of the City trading houses.

I personally don't mind- they are still providing jobs, British owned or not, But; if they are a bad employer, then I mind.

You described the Italian Bank offering cheaper rates for Italians living in Croatia. That is illiegal in the EU, if their main residency is in Croatia, not Italy; but not, (I think) if they are "offshore" banking to a firm in Italy- that's about my limit on EU law- suffice to say Jersey does well out of rich British people banking there, even though they are technically part of the UK and a few miles offshore from France.

You need to check the "offshore" (as it is called) banking rules Croatia has however, regarding foreign nationals.

I'd be annoyed if I saw an advert like that in the UK national press.

Toby

[Spiffor]

The only solution is revolution

Well, maybe not. It is possible to envision a capitalism where dominant companies don't abuse from their dominant position, and where the consumer is protected (I don't think it can work in the long run, but many people do).

Consumer protection is not necessarily a lefty idea. In Europe, the greens and the liberals would support the principle. The lefty/green idea of consumer protection is about regulating what companies can and can't do. For example, the green MEPs are currently trying to ban plenty of chemicals from being used in the production of consumer goods (an immense proportion of the chemicals entering our consumer goods haven't been tested for their impact on human health).

The liberal way of protecting the consumer is by more trusting the market, which implies that the market (and competition) will not auto-destruct. This is why Europe is so keen of creating a level-playing field in which all competition is fair, and in which the demander doesn't get manipulated or deceived. Indeed, the market only works when the demander can effectively compare between several competing suppliers (or vice-versa sometimes). This is why Europe is so strong about preventing the formation of private monopolies, and about destroying currently existing ones. This is why Europe is so strong about standardiation (of cuncumbers ), so that the demander can decide which is the cheapest cuncumber within the same quality.

The liberal approach of consumer protection comes from the fact that the liberals aren't too naïve about the nature of the market. Dysfunctions can happen in a market, and by "dysfunctions", I mean non-market mechanisms making the law (manipulation of the demander, "gentlemen's agreements", or even corruption or violence). This is why the liberal lawmaker will believe it necessary to make sure that the market mechanisms apply despite the pressures against them. This is why he makes laws to protect market mechanisms.

As such, anti-corruption laws, antitrust laws, or cuncumber-standardisation laws all come from the same idea: that the market shouldn't be polluted by non-market mechanisms, which are deemed to be dysfunctional.

[Toby Rowe]

Nothing to add really,

Except you really don't have to be left-wing like me or you to be concerned about health issues from chemicals in your food, as left and right wing supporters can have friends or family dying due to them.

That Danish Government study into why so many men had low sperm counts was traced to a PcP (dunno- cling film) factory, in the discharge point at the river they found male frogs had turned into girls, some that were changing etc. Not good.

An old mate from there finally used the IVF treatment the government offered- now he has twins, how did they get the IVF?- the government had two vans in Kobenhavn that collected the sperm from your house- That is how bad it is there, the UK has exactly the same problem, but without the support structure, and not quite as bad as we now have less industry.

Good governance by any firm or generic industry is not a political left-right issue anymore, it's far more important- it's a moral one for me.


Toby