At an extraordinary meeting today, the Sofia Municipal Council (SOC) will decide whether to authorize Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev to select a new bank to service municipal funds. This is known from the council's agenda, published on the Sofia Municipality website.
The report submitted by Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev states that after "Municipal Bank" AD has unilaterally terminated its contracts for banking services to Sofia Municipality, it is necessary to hold an extraordinary meeting of the council by August 31, in which the SOS should give its consent to authorize the mayor to select a new banking institution.
After the termination of the contracts by "Municipal Bank", a working group was established, which prepared selection criteria and, based on them, initiated a negotiation procedure without prior announcement with the leading banks in the country. The selection criteria include a valid banking license and a high credit rating (not lower than “BBB-“ by Fitch/S&P/BCRA or “Baa3“ by Moody’s), no imposed supervisory measures and no state aid received in the last three years, at least three years of experience in servicing budget organizations and payments through the Electronic Budget Payments System (SEBRA), being included in the first group of the distribution of banks by groups of the “Banking Supervision“ Department of the BNB based on their total assets and in List A of all significant banks under the direct supervision of the European Central Bank (ECB), as well as compliance with the capital requirements under European and national legislation.
At the suggestion of the working group, official invitations to participate in the procedure were sent to the four largest banks in the country according to the BNB criteria: “DSK Bank“ AD, „United Bulgarian Bank“ AD, „UniCredit Bulbank“ AD, „Eurobank Bulgaria“ AD.
BTA recalls that on July 29, the Municipality announced that Municipal Bank had sent a notice of termination of the contract with it. Prior to that, the management of the Sofia Municipality submitted a report to the Sofia Municipal Council on the termination of relations with Municipal Bank, which serves the Municipality.
The public procurement for the selection of a new servicing bank was announced on August 13. The Sofia Municipality announced that interested financial institutions are expected to submit their proposals within ten days.
Within the extraordinary meeting, the SOS will also consider a proposal by the Chairman of the Council, Tsvetomir Petrov, for the selection of an interim mayor of the village of German. Petrov proposes that Rositsa Valchanova, head of the “Administrative and Information Services“ department in the “Pancharevo“ district, take the position of interim mayor of German. BTA recalls that the Sofia Election Commission prematurely terminated the powers of the mayor of the village of German, Bozhidar Traykov, due to his participation in commercial companies.