The financial crisis triggered by the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers and crisis at insurer AIG will cost Austrian banks and insurers about 700 million euros (996 million dollars), the daily Die Presse estimated on Wednesday.
Domestic banks had 500-600 million euros of exposure to Lehman, of which the Raiffeisen group alone accounted for 150 million euros, the newspaper said. Raiffeisen has denied the figure without revealing the full extent of its losses. Insurers Vienna Insurance and Uniqa had outstanding loans of 60-70 million euros and 40-50 million euros respectively at the US bank, according to data that have been only partially confirmed.
Austrian Finance Minister Wilhelm Molterer insisted on Wednesday, however, that the impact from the current crisis will be "next to nothing" for the Austrian financial sector owing to the low level of investment in the US.
While Molterer insisted that the domestic financial sector was "stable and secure," the effects on growth could be "critical". Austria could not de-couple itself from negative developments in, say, Britain, Spain or Germany, the minister cautioned. Molterer declined, however, to say how much growth could be hit. The Vienna Stock Exchange's blue chip ATX index was showing a slight gain in early afternoon trade on Wednesday, rising 0.41 percent to 3,090.11 points.
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