Slovakia : a tale of reluctance and dissimilarity

Abstract

Although against a backdrop of illiquid capital markets, substantial non-performing loans, and other problems, Slovakia’s bank privatization process evolved in what ultimately turned out to be a well structured manner that made the institutions attractive to good strategic partners. This study presents certain financial services industry (FSI) privatization developments, and characteristics, as evolving in a central European country where the process can be considered to have had a number of interesting positive features. The genesis of today’s Slovakia is sourced in issues of ethnicism, nationalism, and conflict, some of which generate continued debate even in our times. When the First World War started in 1914 different Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) had attained different degrees of democracy, and the sentiments of democracy and of nationalism were deliberately appealed to by the Allies in their propaganda against Turkish rule over Arabs, and against Austrian rule over Czechs, over Slovaks, Poles, Croats, and others.