THE NATIONAL Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank, ended 2009 with a profit of €70.6 million, compared to a loss of €1.227 billion the previous year, the SITA newswire reported.
NBS spokesperson Jana Kováčová said the bank’s financial result was positively influenced by revenues from financial operations of €131.2 million, interest income and, in particular, income from securities. The bank posted losses from financial operations of €1.116 billion in 2008.
Based on a decision by the Board of Governors of the European Central Bank (ECB), and given the result of the ECB for 2009, an eight-percent share from the ECB’s issuing of euro-banknotes was distributed among individual eurozone central banks according to the ratio of their paid contributions to the ECB’s registered capital. The NBS share was €7.8 million.
The central bank’s net income from the eurozone’s system of pooling monetary income for 2009 was €12.8 million. Net operating expenses amounted to €60.6 million compared with €111.8 million a year ago, and included expenses for minting euro coins, expenses for employees, administrative and other expenses.
The Bank Board decided to use the profit earned in 2009 to cover outstanding losses from previous years.
The NBS became a member of the Eurosystem on 1 January 2009, the date that Slovakia adopted the euro as its currency. In connection with its entry into the Eurosystem, the NBS conducted the following financial operations: it paid a levy on foreign exchange reserves totalling €39.9 million; it paid up the outstanding share of ECB capital (as a result, its total share represents €399.4 million); and it made contributions totalling €154.2 million to the ECB reserve funds to cover interest, price and exchange rate risks.
