Raiffeisenbank and UniCredit Bulbank are keeping up larger portions of Bulgaria’s fiscal reserve, 168 Chasa weekly reported quoting data by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

The newspaper wrote on Sunday that a total of BGN 722 million has been parked with accounts the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB). This represents 11.4% of the monies protecting the stability of the currency board, a mechanism pegging Bulgaria’s lev to the euro, according to the publication.

The MoF told 168 Chasa that “the fiscal reserve money that are outside of BNB are spread between 95 percent of all banks operating on the Bulgarian market, but a larger portion is concentrated in these two banks.”

Raiffeisenbank (Bulgaria) board chairman and chief executive Momchi Andreev tells 168 Chasa that the lender is the first Greenfield foreign investment in Bulgaria and has attracted 700,000 customers. He says the bank’s assets currently stand at over BGN 6.5 billion, which is almost 10% of the sector’s total. He notes that public finances do not constitute a substantial part of Raiffeisenbank’s balance sheet but it has won several tenders including for ten units of the National Revenue Agency (NRA), municipalities and monies from EU pre-accession funds.

“Bulbank has BGN 12 billion in assets and holds 30% of the [Bulgarian] corporate sector. On top of that, we have traditionally good relations with the Ministry of Finance. After all, government money management requires specific skills which we have,” UniCredit Bulbank CEO Levon Hampartzoumian told 168 Chasa.

According to NRA statistics, the agency has accounts with six banks, with CIBank, Raiffeisenbank and Investbank servicing the bulk of its regional units.