Total losses for Latvia's banks last year estimated at LVL 773 million

Precise figures will be released at the beginning of April when bank audits will be completed.

The credit portfolio dropped 7 percent and was at LVL 15 billion, while reserves on bad credit reached LVL 1.4 billion last year.

Despite this, Brazovskis rated 2009 in the Latvian financial sector as "satisfactory for the most part." The year was "complicated", but the prediction in 2008 of an "apocalypse", i.e. massive collapse in the banking system, did not occur, he said. Many banks showed operational profit, but this was "eaten up" by the loans from previous years, he pointed out.

LETA