“Strong foundations build strong institu­tions. The raising of our capital levels to nearly 16% Common Equity Tier 1 (CET 1) was an essential step to allow us to con­fidently ask the Cypriot consumer and business community to begin to normal­ize their arrangements with us,” Hourican tells the influential magazine in its December edition.

“We have moved the debate from survival to value. The journey back to strength is now well under way. We must make more progress in tackling the high level of non-perfor­mance in our Cyprus loan book and continue to normalize our funding by accessing capital markets and attracting deposit volumes,” he added.  

At the end of August, BoC oversaw an increase in share capital of $1.28 billion. On investment ideas BoC has when looking at the Cyprus financial market in 2015, Hourican said these revolve in the near term around tourism.

Provided the government puts in place the urgent and essential incentives to increase air-traffic flows, tourism assets and revenue from property, which has been falling in value for six years.

Source: InCyprus