One of the leading banks in Serbia ready to quit businesses in Central and Eastern Europe, a web site reports

French multinational banking and financial services company Société Générale headquartered in Paris is planning to leave Central and Eastern Europe, sell its branches in Central and Eastern Europe and focus on other parts of its businesses, according to EU Scoop, a Bulgarian website.

The website said on Sunday (April 9), SG would sell its banks in Bulgaria, together with those in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Moldova.

The decision is apparently made due to those markets’ glut and current unattractiveness, as well as because the bank does not rank among the first three in any of those countries.

The SG Serbia refused to comment the report. It told N1 that only bank management in Paris would inform public about the company’s strategic moves.

The company opened its office in Belgrade in 1977, while in 1991 it became the only bank with foreign capital operating in Serbia in the 1990s, during the wars in former Yugoslavia. It has a network of 100 branches and is among the leading banks in the country.