Less than 5% of households own two-thirds of the money in deposits in Bulgaria

Less than 5% of the households in our country owned two-thirds, or 68%, of the money in deposits in Bulgaria last year. Despite the crisis, families managed to increase their financial assets by 12%, showed an analysis of households’ wealth conducted by UniCredit Bulbank. The growth of bank deposits contributed the most to that increase.

An interesting trend observed in recent months is that the families with greater deposits have increased their size, while those with smaller savings have withdrawn their money from the banks. According to experts, the reason why less affluent households withdrew their savings was that they felt more strongly the impact of inflation, the more so as, at the end of 2010, food and beverages accounted for 36.5% of their expenses. The other reasons for the worsening financial state of the average household in the country are the declining income per capita and the rising unemployment rate.

According to BNB data, there were 2,251 deposits exceeding BGN 1 mln in domestic banks at the end of March, or 111 more, compared to the same period of 2010. Out of these, 479 were held by natural persons and 1,772 – by companies. This practically means that each week two new millionaires deposited seven-digit amounts in banks.
“Over the next two years, Bulgarians will continue to save money in deposits,” commented Milen Kasabov, Senior Economist at UniCredit Bulbank. “Bulgaria is the poorest member of the ‘club of the wealthy’ and this is the reason for our low self-esteem. However, we are not poor in the sense the World Bank uses this term, i.e. living with less than $2 a day,” said Levon Hampartzoumian, Executive Director of UniCredit Bulbank.

In 2010, the net financial amount per capita of Bulgaria’s population was €1,135, up from €843 in 2009 and €650 at the peak of the global crisis in 2008. However, the country has not caught up with the 2007 level – the record-high €1,147 per capita, which is expected to be reached in the next two years.

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