Interest rates go as high as 81.56% - Information on interest rates charged by banks on current account overdrafts published by NBS

The highest annual interest rate on unauthorized current account overdrafts is charged by Erste Bank - 81.56%, and the lowest by Dunav banka - 16.34%, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) announced in a release on Monday.

As part of the initiative for general lowering of banking product prices, and without the intention to interfere with the business policies of banks, the National Bank of Serbia is publishing data on the cost of using current account overdrafts, broken down by bank.

The interest rate on unathorized overdrafts exceeds 50% in as many as 10 out of 29 banks in Serbia. Aside from Erste Bank, such high interest rates are also charged by Societe Generale Bank (78.28%), KBM banka Kragujavac (58.69%), Cacanska banka (57.99), KBC banka (57.59), Credit agricole Novi Sad (54.7), OTP banka (53.69), ProCredit (51.22), Srpska banka (51.11) and Komercijalna banka (50.34%).

The lowest interest rate on unauthorized overdrafts are charged by UniCredit banka (18.8%) and Jubmes banka (22.21%) in addition to, of course, Dunav banka.

By presenting these publicly available data in a single list, the National Bank of Serbia aims to give citizens an opportunity to compare the cost of products across banks and make an informed choice that suits their needs and means.

The National Bank of Serbia contributes in this way to positive competition in the banking market and wishes to remind the public that its initiative has already brought about an optimisation of the level of interest rates on saving deposits for the purposes of reducing the price of the sources of funding. This has ushered in a decline in bank lending rates and increased the availability of finance to corporates and households.