Impairments and provisions surged by 43.2% to EUR 1.44bn while net interest revenue, a key source of income for banks, plunged by almost a fifth to EUR 683.9m.

Loans to non-banking clients continued to contract, dropping by 11.7% year-on-year to EUR 28bn.

Deposits by non-banking clients however expanded 2.7% to almost EUR 25bn even as household deposits dropped 2.2% to EUR 14.4bn.

Banks total assets dropped by a tenth to EUR 42.7bn.

The central bank said the figures reflected the winding down of Probanka and Factor banka.

The end-year figures are likely to be very different, as three state-owned banks - NLB, NKBM and Abanka - were recapitalised along with Factor banka and Probanka in mid-December at a cost of EUR 3.2bn.

Moreover, NLB and NKBM have already started to offload their non-performing loans to the Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC).