The €6 billion EU Growth Plan aims to accelerate the socioeconomic development and EU integration of the Western Balkans through investments in key areas like clean energy and digitalization. Tailored strategies are necessary to address unique economic challenges and leverage global shifts, enhancing regional economic prospects. The region’s potential for nearshoring further boosts growth opportunities. However, progress depends on resolving bilateral disputes and implementing essential reforms, particularly in governance and rule of law. |
Business sentiment improved slightly in September, although it remains pessimistic. Inflation, on the other hand, apparently accelerated amid rising producer costs and a limited supply of raw materials. Budget indicators have stabilised, but a smaller amount of external assistance in September resulted in a drop in the NBU's foreign exchange reserves. Increased FX interventions by the NBU helped stabilise the FX market. |
Although not yet signalled in September, today was still no surprise: the ECB decided to lower key rates by 25 basis points, and did so unanimously. Confidence in the disinflation trend has increased since September and economic risks are further dampening the inflation outlook. Nevertheless, the ECB does not expect a recession. Financing conditions are considered to be restrictive, which indirectly suggests further rate cuts down the road, even though the ECB is keeping a low profile on this. |
With data for September showing the lowest yoy increase since March 2021, inflation in Croatia has levelled off at 3.0% yoy in the first nine months of the year. It is clear that prices are normalising in all but one aggregate. Services are still causing headaches! Although the stubbornness of service inflation is a well-known development throughout Europe, it is even more pronounced in Croatia. |
This report is (co-) sponsored with financial contribution provided by the subject of the report.
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The monthly dynamics in retail prices slowed their pace in September (+0.1% mom), after 0.4% mom increases in August and July. The headline print moderately slowed to 4.2% yoy after 4.3% yoy in August, thus remaining within the inflation target (3% +/-1.5pp). |
We now expect that the ECB will cut interest rates again in October. We see many good reasons and interesting background factors on top of the recent positive inflation print for the increased degree of monetary policy flexibility at the European Central Bank, which is beneficial for the euro area overall. |
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Thomas Sternbach
Legal Services
Raiffeisen Bank International AG
Am Stadtpark 9, 1030 Wien
Tel: +43-1-71707-1541
Fax: +43-1-71707-761541
thomas.sternbach@rbinternational.com
Information pursuant to Articles 13 and 14 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on the processing of personal data
We hereby inform you about the processing of your personal data and the data protection claims and rights to which you are entitled. The content and scope of the data processing depends largely on the products and services you have requested or which are agreed with you.
Responsible for data processing:
Raiffeisen Bank International AG (hereinafter referred to as "Bank" or "RBI")
Am Stadtpark 9
1030 Vienna
Telephone +43 1 71707-0
E-Mail: datenschutz@rbinternational.com
Contact data of the Data Protection Officer of the Bank:
Daniela Bollmann
Phone +43 1 71707-8603
E-Mail: datenschutzbeauftragter@rbinternational.com
We process the personal data that we receive from you as part of our business relationship. In addition, we process data that we have legitimately received from credit bureaus (CRIF GmbH), debtor directories (Kreditschutzverband von 1870) and from publicly available sources (eg business register, association register, land register or media) or that are provided legitimately by other companies affiliated with the bank.
Personal information includes your personal details and contact information (e.g., name, address, date and place of birth, nationality, etc.) or identity and travel document information (such as signature sample, ID information). In addition, this may include payment and clearing data (eg payment orders, turnover data in payment transactions), credit data (eg type and amount of income, recurring payment obligations for children's education costs, loan repayments, rents), data on marketing and distribution, credit transactions, image and / or sound recordings (eg video and telephone recordings), electronic log and identification data (apps, cookies, etc.), financial identification data (data from credit, debit, prepaid cards) or AML (anti-money laundering) and compliance data and other data comparable to the above categories.
We process your personal data in accordance with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Austrian Data Protection Act 2018.
to fulfill contractual obligations (Article 6 (1) (b) GDPR)
The processing of personal data (Art 4 No. 2 GDPR) is carried out for the provision and brokering of banking, financial services and insurance, leasing and real estate transactions, in particular for the performance of our contracts with you and the execution of your orders as well as for carrying out pre-contractual measures.
The purposes of the data processing are based primarily on the specific product (for example, account, credit, building society savings, securities, deposits, brokerage, debit and credit cards) and may, among others, contain analysis of your financial needs, consulting, asset management , and execution of transactions.
Such data processing takes place, for example, in connection with debit cards (also called "ATM cards"), which RBI makes available to you and with which you are in particular able to execute payment transactions with merchants at POS terminals ("ATM cash registers") and on the internet ( E-commerce payments in the online shop), to withdraw cash at designated ATMs (also called "Bankomat"), and to perform transactions between debit cards ("ZOIN"). Such transactions must be assignable to the banks of the cardholder and the payee in order to enable the settlement of the transactions among each other. Almost all institutions operating in Austria have concluded a contract with the PSA Payment Services Austria GmbH (PSA) for this purpose (PSA contract). The purpose of such PSA contract is to regulate the mutual rights and obligations between each institution and PSA. Moreover in the PSA contract the institutions agree on the conditions under which transactions (eg withdrawals) of foreign bank customers in their own cash dispensers or payment transactions at POS terminals are accepted. PSA is responsible for the technical handling of transactions with usable cards with the institutes. In addition, PSA also operates its own ATMs. In order to process transactions and settle accounts between institutions, institutions must process data of their own clients. The legal basis of the data processing are a variety of laws, such as the Banking Act, the Payment Services Act, the Financial Market Money Laundering Act, etc., to which the contracting parties of the PSA contract are committed and the contract between the institution and its customers (eg current account agreement, card agreement). To exercise your rights in connection with the data processing referred to in this paragraph, please contact RBI.
For credit cards, the exchange of personal data, especially with merchants and account-holding banks is necessary for the execution of the credit card transaction.
Specific details for the purpose of the data processing mentioned herein can be found in the respective contractual documents and terms and conditions.
to fulfill legal obligations (Article 6 (1) (c) GDPR)
The processing of personal data shall only be carried out for the purpose of fulfilling various legal obligations (such as the Banking Act, Financial Market Money Laundering Act, Securities Supervision Act, Stock Exchange Act, etc.) as well as due to regulatory requirements (eg the European Central Bank, the European Banking Authority, the Austrian Financial Market Authority, etc.). which the Bank is subject to as an Austrian credit institution. Examples of such cases are:
as part of your consent (Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR
If you have given us your consent to the processing of your personal data for specific purposes (eg, disclosure of data to recipients named in the consent, notifications via the ELBA mailbox, lotteries), processing will only take place in accordance with the scope and for the purpose as set out in and agreed in the consent form. A given consent may be withdrawn at any time with effect for the future.
Examples of such cases are the evaluation of your data (such as name, age, account turnover data and the like) and the query of external credit databases (Kreditschutzverband von 1870, CRIF GmbH), in order to anticipate your credit rating for credit offers that RBI provides to you.
to safeguard legitimate interests (Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR) in general
If necessary, data processing may be carried out to protect legitimate interests of the Bank or third parties. In the following cases, data processing takes place to safeguard legitimate interests. Examples of such cases are:
to safeguard legitimate interests (Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR) in the marketing of our services
The evaluation of your data processed at RBI for the purpose of
The following data, which either RBI itself has collected itself or which you have transmitted to RBI, will be evaluated:
These data include the personal data and the detailed data of the products, such as the item of transactions, terms, interest, charges, debits, credits and arrears.
If the products brokered are payment instruments, the analysed data also includes: payment behavior, incoming and outgoing payment transactions, recipients and senders, payment service providers, amounts, purpose, payment references, originator references, frequencies and types of money movements, cashless payments, data of the dealers or service providers and information about these closed deals.
Within the Bank, those units or employees, subsidiaries receive your data, as required by them to fulfill their contractual, legal and / or regulatory obligations and legitimate interests. In addition, contractors (especially IT and back-office service providers) will receive your data as long and to the extent as they need the data to perform their respective service. All processors are contractually obliged to treat your data confidentially and to process the data for the provision of the respected services.
If there is a legal or regulatory obligation, public authorities and institutions (European Banking Authority, European Central Bank, Austrian National Bank, Austrian Financial Market Supervisory Authority, tax authorities, etc.) as well as our Bank and auditors may be the recipients of your personal data. With regard to a data transfer to other third parties, we would like to point out that RBI as an Austrian bank is obliged to observe banking secrecy in accordance with § 38 BWG and therefore is obliged to keep confidentiality regarding to all customer-related information and facts that have been entrusted to us or made available due to the business relationship. RBI may only disclose such personal information, if you have exempted us in writing and expressly from banking secrecy, or if the Bank is legally obliged by law to such a disclosure. The recipients of personal data in this context may be other credit and financial institutions or similar entities. We disclose to such recipients only those data as we need in order to conduct the business relationship with you. Depending on the respective contract, these recipients may be eg correspondent banks, stock exchanges, custodian banks, credit bureaus or other companies affiliated with the Bank (due to regulatory or legal obligation).
Data from the video surveillance of RBI can be used on a case by case basis by competent authorities or the court (for evidence in criminal matters), security services (for security purposes), courts (to secure evidence in civil cases), employees, witnesses, victims (under the enforcement of their claims), insurance (exclusively for the settlement of insurance claims), lawyers and other bodies for the purpose of law enforcement.
A transfer of data to third countries (outside the European Economic Area - EEA) will only take place if this will be necessary for the execution of your orders (eg payment and securities orders), or if so required by law or if you have given us your explicit consent.
In addition, data may be transferred to RBI's subsidiaries or processors in third countries or subcontractors of RBI's processors in third countries. These are obliged to comply with European data protection and security standards. Information about this can be obtained from us.
Payments and cash withdrawals with debit and credit cards can lead to the necessary involvement of international card organizations and thus possibly to data processing by these card organizations in third countries. For example, the data protection measures taken by MasterCard ("Binding Corporate Rules") are available at
www.mastercard.us/resources/mccom/en-us/documents/mastercard-bcrs-february-2017.pdf.
If so required by law, we will separately provide you with further details.
We process your personal data, as far as necessary, for the whole duration of the entire business relationship (beginning with the conclusion of a contract, its execution and ending with its termination) as well as in accordance with the mandatory storage and documentation obligation as required by law, in particular pursuant to the following Austrian legal provisions: the Companies Code (Unternehmensgesetzbuch, UGB), the Federal Fiscal Code (Bundesabgabenordnung, BAO), the Banking Act (Bankwesengesetz BWG), the Financial Market Money Laundering Act (Finanzmarkt-Geldwäschegesetz, FM-GwG) and the Securities Supervision Act (Wertpapieraufsichtsgesetz, WAG).
Moreover, the data storage is also subject to the statutory limitation periods, eg under the Austrian General Civil Code (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, ABGB) and may in certain cases last up to 30 years (the most relevant limitation period in practice is 3 years).
Data from the video-surveillance of the Bank will be deleted in principle after 15 days if no longer required for the purposes of video surveillance.
You have the right to access, rectification, erasure or restriction of the processing of your stored data, a right to object to processing and a right to data portability in accordance with the requirements of data protection law. Complaints can be addressed to the Austrian Data Protection Authority, Barichgasse 40-42, 1030 Vienna, Austria, www.dsb.gv.at.
As part of the business relationship, you must provide us with all personal information that is necessary to enter into and to maintain the business relationship with you, and also those data that we are required by law to collect. If you do not provide us with these data, we will generally decline either to conclude or to complete the contract, or we will be unable to execute an existing contract or we would be forced to terminate such contract. However, you are not obliged to give your consent to the processing of data if such data is not necessary for the performance of a contract or is not required by law or regulation.
In general, we do not use fully automated decision-making within the meaning of Article 22 GDPR in order to establish and/or to conduct a business relationship. If we should use such procedures on a case-by-case basis, we will inform you accordingly by separate notice as so provided for by law.
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For the above-mentioned purposes, we have your personal data processed by the following service providers: Raiffeisen Informatik GmbH, GRZ IT Center GmbH, Raiffeisen Informatik Center Steiermark GmbH.
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26.03.2020
Wir sind der etablierte Research-Provider für den Raiffeisen Sektor Österreich. Wir analysieren sowohl die Eurozone als auch die Volkswirtschaft Österreich sowie alle internationalen und am Kapitalmarkt relevanten Themen (Notenbanken, Benchmarkzinsen, Währungen). Zudem analysieren wir ca. 100 internationale/westeuropäische Aktien-Einzeltitel für den österreichischen Raiffeisensektor. Im institutionellen Aktiengeschäft analysieren wir ca. 100 Titel aus Österreich und Zentral- und Osteuropa (CEE). Weiters haben wir in den letzten Jahren ein Immobilien-Research Österreich (inkl. der Bundesländer) etabliert.
Zu unserem Analysespektrum gehört auch die gemeinsame Analyse der Gesamtregion CEE bzw. der Märkte der Raiffeisen Bank International mit unseren Analystenkollegen vor Ort in 13 CEE-Ländern. Wir fungieren auch als erster Ansprechpartner österreichischer, deutschsprachiger und internationaler Medien bei Österreich- und CEE-Themen.
Kunden der Raiffeisen Bankengruppe können in Abstimmung mit ihrem Kundenbetreuer Zugang zu unseren Services erhalten.
We are a diverse team of around 80 analysts based in Austria and 13 countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our products and expertise rely on continuous and close collaboration between the research teams in CEE and Vienna. Moreover, we are the exclusive provider to the Austrian Raiffeisen Banking Group regarding retail research.
We consider ourselves a leading research boutique focused on CEE, Austria and the euro area. We offer local market expertise plus contact to well-established experts on the ground in CEE and Austria. On a product level, we offer a granular coverage of CEE and the Austrian market and its issuers (Macro, Fixed Income, Equity) with a growing ESG-Focus. Our well-established analyst colleagues from Budapest to Bucharest to Tirana and Moscow will be happy to assist you and provide competent expert advice.
Our international clients (mostly institutional and corporate clients as well as public institutions) can benefit from our wide-ranging research footprint in CEE. Access to our research services can be granted to all RBI corporate clients and all other non-MiFID II regulated clients. Clients subject to MiFID II regulation are kindly asked to approach us via their Capital Market Sales contacts at RBI.