Banks in Bulgaria and who else may lend or broker credit
Bulgaria's National Bank keeps four separate registers of who may legally lend or broker credit, each pulled on its own date. This tool reads all four, plus the Bank's own national interest rate statistics, so a claim can be checked against the primary source instead of a marketing page.
Open the registers Free, no sign-up. The tool has a full English mode; register entries stay in Bulgarian, as published by the BNB.How it works
Three steps to check a lender or a rate against the primary source.
Pick a register
Choose from licensed banks, financial institutions under the Credit Institutions Act, credit intermediaries, or licensed credit servicers, each pulled from BNB on its own date.
Check the status
Every entry carries its current status, active or struck off, straight from the register text, so it is clear whether an institution is still authorised today.
Compare the real cost of credit
Read the national average APR for consumer and housing loans by maturity, from BNB's own interest rate statistics, not a marketing rate.
What each register actually covers
Four separate BNB lists, each with its own legal basis and pull date.
Built so every figure can be checked
Every figure traces back to a specific BNB register or statistical table, not a summary someone else compiled.
Regulatory status, not opinion
Every listing states a documented fact: licensed, registered or struck off, with the date it was pulled from BNB. The tool does not publish allegations of misconduct without a register entry or an official decision behind them.
National aggregate APR since 2007
Monthly average annual percentage rate of charge for new consumer and housing loans, split by original maturity, straight from BNB's interest rate statistics. It is a national figure, not a per-bank comparison.
Four registers, four legal bases
Licensed banks, financial institutions, credit intermediaries and credit servicers each answer a different legal question, and each is shown with its own BNB pull date rather than merged into one list.
Education with invented numbers only
The sections explaining APR, annuity, floating interest and early repayment use example figures labelled as examples. None of them come from a real contract or a real institution.
Four registers, four different questions
Picking the wrong one is the most common mistake when checking a lender.
| Register | Answers | Does not answer |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed banks | Can this institution take deposits and act as a bank in Bulgaria | Its interest rates or its financial results |
| Financial institutions (Art. 3a) | Can this institution grant loans without being a bank | Whether its individual rates are competitive |
| Credit intermediaries | Can this person or firm broker a loan on a lender's behalf | Which lenders it actually works with |
| Credit servicers | Can this firm collect or manage an existing loan on someone else's behalf | Whether the original loan itself was fair |
None of the four registers rank lenders by cost. For that, the tool uses BNB's own national average APR statistics instead, aggregated across the whole market rather than published bank by bank.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four BNB registers this tool reads?
Licensed banks and branches of foreign banks, financial institutions authorised under Art. 3a of the Credit Institutions Act, credit intermediaries, and licensed or approved credit servicers. Each is a separate legal category with its own registration requirement, and the tool pulls each one on its own date rather than merging them into a single list.
Does the tool tell me which bank has the best interest rate?
No. BNB's interest rate statistics are published as a national aggregate for new consumer and housing loans, not broken down by individual bank, so there is no data source to build a bank-by-bank ranking from. The tool shows the national average APR instead, which is still useful for judging whether a quoted rate looks unusually high or low.
Where does the APR data come from and how far back does it go?
From BNB's own interest rate statistics on new business with households, published monthly from January 2007 onward, split into consumer and housing loans and further split by original maturity. It is the same statistical table BNB itself publishes, read directly rather than summarised from a news article.
Does the tool report violations or fines against specific banks?
No. Bulgaria's Consumer Protection Commission does not publish a machine readable register of unfair contract terms, and Bulgarian court databases do not support reliable structured searches by institution. Rather than guess, the tool limits itself to documented registry facts: licensed, registered or struck off, with a date and a link to the source register.
Can I check a specific credit intermediary or financial institution by name?
Yes, each register lists its entries with their current status, active or struck off, as published by BNB. What the tool does not do is add commentary on why an entry changed status, since that reasoning is not part of the open register data itself.
Is the educational section about APR and annuities based on real contracts?
No, deliberately not. The examples used to explain APR, annuity structure, floating interest rates and early repayment are invented numbers, clearly presented as illustrations. Using a real contract's figures would risk presenting one company's terms as a general rule, which is not something a neutral registry tool should do.
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