by Jaroslav Hofer

    PRAGUE, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- It is clear that the year 2009 was not a bad one for Czech banks and stock market, though some negative economic figures and uncertainties existed.

    The Czech banking system witnessed a successful story last year as not a single Czech bank went bankrupt. Moreover, none of them appeared to be in serious danger. On the contrary, the three leading banks made profits and helped their foreign owners out of trouble.

    While the owners of Ceska sporitelna, the Komercni banka and the CSOB had to ask their governments for help, the Czech banks themselves fared quite well.

    Ceska sporitelna announced even higher profits in the first three quarters of 2009 than a year earlier. The CSOB reported a 7.3-percent profit growth in the first six months of 2009 compared with the same period in 2008. The Komercni banka scored a net profit of 8.5 billion crowns (460 million U.S. dollars) in the first nine months.

    The total profits of all 38 banks operating in the Czech Republic grew substantially, mainly attributing to their conservative investment policies and high service prices for customers.

    Profits made by their financial policies and from their operations reached 116.8 billion crowns (6.34 billion dollars), which represented a 12-percent year-on-year increase, according to official figures.

    Good performance of banks has helped the Czech currency gain value of about 1.9 percent against the euro last year, reversing a1.1-percent decline in 2008.

    The success of banks was also well expressed on the stock market. Prices of the Komercni banka shares shot up to 4,000 crowns (216.97 dollars) by the end of 2009 from 1,600 to 1,700 crowns (86.79-92.21 dollars) in February and March.

    Generally, investors in the Czech stock market had a great year in 2009. The most popular PX index now stands 77 percent higher than 10 months ago and 30 percent higher than 12 months ago.

    However, the picture is not totally rosy for Czech banks. They might lose money on bad mortgages as up to 10,000 houses and flats bought with the help of mortgages will have to be resold.

    Altogether, Czechs have to pay the banks 682 billion crowns (37billion dollars) for the new homes they have bought, but 2 or 3 percent of the buyers will have to default.

    To make the situation worse, the loss of jobs will lead to more bad loans.

    It was estimated that the unemployment rate had skyrocketed to 8.5 percent compared with 5.0 percent in the summer of 2008.

    The Czech central bank reported last October that some 5.5 percent of total bank loans were not be repaid. Analysts expect that bad loans will grow to 7 to 8 percent this year.

 Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis