The golden age may have come to an end,” sighs Peter Felcsuti, managing director of the Austrian bank Raiffeisen’s Hungarian subsidiary.
Just one year ago, bankers across central and eastern Europe were putting on a brave face, confidently insisting that the credit crunch would have at most an indirect effect on their markets: tight liquidity was a temporary hiccup which would not disrupt the solid convergence story of rising incomes and growing consumer borrowing that has made the region such a profitable one for banking.
