The proposed change does not mean a capital increase in itself, it would merely open the door for increasing the core capital by up to EUR 20.4m by issuing new shares in five years in order to increase the bank's "responsiveness", NKBM told the STA on Wednesday.

According to the NKBM, the bank will need additional funds to reach the long-term goals in its strategy until 2013, and to maintain its capital adequacy above the limit set by regulators.

The bank's management and supervisors believe that issuing new shares on the Slovenian and foreign markets will also help increase the price of existing NKBM shares on the stock markets.

The group around NKBM, which is listed on the Ljubljana and Warsaw stock exchanges, generated an unexpectedly high net loss of EUR 81.1m in 2011, mostly on impairments and provisions. However, it did post a EUR 536,000 net profit in the first quarter of 2012.