STA, 15 February 2022 - The average gross pay in Slovenia rose by 6.1% in nominal terms in 2021 to EUR 1,970, the fastest pace in five years. The increase was almost equally driven by the public and private sectors, show the latest Statistics Office figures.

While the nominal increase is the fastest in five years, the real increase was a more modest 4.1% due to high inflation last year.

The average pay rose by 6.5% in the public sector, to EUR 2,337, and by 6.1% in the private sector, to EUR 1,941.

In December, the average wage dropped by a percent compared to the month before, which the statisticians attribute to lower Christmas bonuses paid out for December since most such bonuses come with November wages.

The average net pay rose by 5.1% in nominal terms and 3.1% in real terms to EUR 1,270.

STA, 14 February 2022 - A press conference on online fraud heard on Monday that this type of crime is on the rise in Slovenia, with national Computer Emergency Response Team (SI-CERT) recording 3,197 reports of online fraud last year, of which 30% were reported cases of phishing.

Maruša Maligoj of SI-CERT told the virtual press conference hosted by the NKBM bank that the actual number was actually much higher, as many fraud attempts remained unreported.

Almost a thousand cases of phishing were reported last year, with the most phishing attacks being attempted in the name of delivery services, while online advertisements and banks were also often imitated.

The number of cases of fraud in the form of fake loan offers is also increasing. In 2020, 94 such cases were detected by SI-CERT, and 137 in 2021.

This is also a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, as people experienced financial difficulties while banks tightened their conditions for obtaining loans, said Maligoj.

Meanwhile, the police dealt with more than 600 cases of fraud last year, with total damage amounting to more than EUR 12 million, which is a 50% increase in the number of cases and a 150% increase in damage compared to 2020.

David Gracer of the Criminal Police Administration added that the increase in the number of cases of fraud continued this year, as the police had already dealt with more than 80 cases, with total damage amounting to more than EUR 2.5 million.

Police data also show that investment fraud is among the most common types of fraud, followed by e-mail breaches, romance scams, advance-fee scam, fake loan scams, remote access scams under the pretext of technical support and money mules.

Božidar Dajčman, the head of physical and information security management department at NKBM, noted that Slovenian banks had been monitoring phishing attempts and attacks on customers for at least eight years.

"There has been more of such attacks recently. An increase in such attempts was observed in 2021, and the trend continued in 2022 and we do not expect this to change any time soon," he added.

The tourism and hospitality industry was uniquely affected by the pandemic. We were left without visitors, bookings, and any sign of returning to normal. The good news is that visitors are coming back. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) anticipates tourism could contribute $8.6 trillion USD to the global economy this year. This is just below pre-pandemic levels.

Imagine international tourists taking a road trip through Slovenia and after a long day they want to find a place to stay the night and somewhere to eat. They will most likely use their phones to search for nearby accommodation or food recommendations.

If presented with two options on Google, where one is using their Google Business Profile to provide weekly updates and allow customers to leave glowing reviews, while the other never even claimed their profile and have no photos to show that they still exist. It should be no surprise that the business with content and social proof is more likely to be chosen.

Besides which one the customer will choose, the businesses with claimed profiles and fresh content are rewarded with better real estate on Google Maps and search results.

In 2021, searches for “along my route” increased 1000%.

Tourists are more tech savvy than previously which means businesses need to digitize and get online.

Wallflower Studios is hosting a series of free webinars in 2022 to help support Slovenian-based businesses in the industry. The first of which will cover Google Business Profile; the benefits, how to set up your account, and how to use it to attract new customers.

Helene Jelenc - Head of SEO and Research

 

 

 

Sandra Potisek - Head of Content and PR

 

Google Business Profile (previously Google My Business) is a free tool that can truly benefit your business when used strategically.

The webinar will take place on 2 different days to accommodate different schedules. When registering please use this Google Form and select your preferred date; Thursday 24 Feb (19:00) or Saturday 26 Feb (10:00).

Visit Wallflower Studio’s official site for more details.

STA, 9 February 2022 - Corwin, a Slovak developer present in Slovenia for over four years, and its Czech partner Hartenberg have purchased two large plots in the centre of Ljubljana to build several hundred new flats, new offices and a shopping mall, the company said on Wednesday. Construction is expected to start around 2024.

The first plot of almost 6,300 square metres is located along Masarykva Street and was sold to the two investors by the Slovenian bad bank BAMC.

Under the current spatial plan, housing or office buildings can be constructed on it.

The second plot extends on almost 16,500 square metres behind the Slovenijales office building south of Linhartova Street.

It was bought from Triglav Nepremičnine, insurer Triglav's real estate arm.

As the newspaper Dnevnik recently reported, offices, hotels, hospitality or retail infrastructure can be built on it but not housing.

"Both plots have the potential to strongly enrich the surroundings and significantly impact on the image of the new Ljubljana centre," Robert Mitterpach, financial director and chairman of the board at Corwin, said in the news release.

The investors have thus invited several respectable architecture studios from around the globe to take part.

Gehl Architects, a Danish studio which has also transformed Times Square in New York, was invited to prepare the main project in Linhartova Street, while Austria's AllesWirdGut will design the buildings.

Details about the Masarykova Street project, which will be part of a major renovation around the train station as part of a public-private partnership, are not yet known.

However, Corwin said that Vilharia, an office building designed by Danish Schmidt Hammer Lassen that will start being built at the end of 2022 near Ljubljana's main train station, will serve as a role model. Corwin hopes to bring together local construction experts and a leading architecture studio.

Corwin said that Vilharia was worth tens of millions of euros while it billed it as the greenest building in Slovenia.

The Slovak developer is meanwhile building a housing complex in Ljubljna's Šiška borough; Kvartet is its first major project in Slovenia.

The EUR 45 million investment will feature four 15-storey blocks of flats. Construction work, launched in August 2020, is in full swing.

STA, 9 February 2022 - A total of 46% of Slovenian employers intend to raise wages by 5% in the first half of this year, shows Manpower's survey on salary and employee benefits trends. Employers cite retaining talent in their organisations as the main reason for the increase.

According to Manpower, 25% of the employers expect to raise pay between 6% and 10%, 4% expect a rise of 11-15%, and 1% a rise of more than 21%.

A total of 24% of the employers, on the other hand, do not intend to increase pay.

Although the majority of the employers plan to increase wages, 74% do not see the need to increase other benefits and financial incentives.

In addition, 43% of the country's employers expect to increase wages for all employees in the company in the first half of 2022, whereas 12% will do so for 50-80% of their employees. 21% of the employers will do this for between 20-50% of their staff, and 24% intend to increase wages for up to 20% of workers.

The main aim of employers seems to be to retain talent in their firms. "When asked whether the planned increase in salaries and/or additional benefits is more related to retaining or attracting new employees, 68% of Slovenian employers said it is a retention measure, while 14% said it is a measure to attract new employees," Manpower said.

Planning to announce wage increases to retain staff are most companies in manufacturing, IT, consulting services, banking, insurance and finance, telecommunications, science, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, education, transport and logistics, and construction.

Tourism, car industry and outsourcing are the industries where most companies are expecting pay increases to attract new workers.

The survey notes that the results may have been influenced by employers' behaviour to align the minimum wage with consumer price inflation - but only in industries where the average wage is lower or where a higher share of employees are paid the minimum wage.

The survey for the first six months in 2022 is part of a wider Manpower survey covering four countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, including Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Slovenia, companies from all over the country and from different industries were included. Manpower conducts this survey at the end of each half-year period.

STA, 1 February - The Constitutional Court has annulled rulings by two courts that rejected borrowers' request for annulment of contracts on loans in Swiss francs and for a refund of overpayments, in what is the first decision of Slovenia's top court related to issue of Swiss franc loans.

The Constitutional Court has found that the rulings did not adequately address the concerns regarding the assessment of the standard of banks' duty of disclosure and that of fairness, and has returned the cases for reconsideration.

The decision relates to the rulings of the Ljubljana District Court from July 2019 and of the Ljubljana Higher Court from May 2020, which were appealed by spouses Igor and Simona Ajdnik.

As the highest court in the country said in its decision, the appellants had noted the sensitivity of the issue as they had taken a Swiss franc loan to purchase a family home, and the hazardous nature of the deal.

They also drew attention to the detrimental consequences of the deal and the increase in the price of the loan for their social standing and family life, and noted the bank's knowledge of the risks of the foreign exchange rate market.

The court said that the challenged rulings had been based on the premise that the fairness of the main subject of the contract, i.e the Swiss franc currency clause, is not assessed in the case when the duty of disclosure is fulfilled, and the assessment that the duty of disclosure had been fulfilled in the case in question.

The two courts had assessed that the currency clause had not been unfair, supporting the notion that the bank had acted in good faith by stating that when the loan contract was being concluded, it could not have anticipated major changes in the exchange rate to the detriment of the clients, and that it did not give specific or misleading guarantees.

The Constitutional Court also noted that the two courts had argued that there was no significant imbalance in the contractual rights and obligations as the bank had also borne the currency risk and was obliged to provide adequate collateral, with change in the currency ratio not bringing any benefit.

The case law of the EU Court of Justice stipulates that in the case of a Swiss franc loan, the client must be informed in clear and understandable language about all mechanisms that affect the repayment of the loan and their consequences in order to take a prudent and informed decision.

If this is not the case, the court must make an assessment of fairness, i.e. whether the bank acted in good faith or not, and whether it acted in line with the principle of conscientiousness, and whether there is a significant imbalance in rights and obligations between the parties.

Due to the precedent importance of the constitutional issues raised by the positions taken by the two courts, the Constitutional Court decided to test these positions in their entirety, meaning with regard to the duty of disclosure and with regard to fairness.

It said that it was not clear from the explanatory notes of the challenged rulings which explanation by the bank could make the borrower be aware of the actual consequences of a major depreciation of the domestic currency or a growth of the Swiss franc currency rate on the amount of the loan obligation.

As this is one of the key elements of the standard of duty of disclosure, the courts violated the right to a reasoned court decision referred to Article 22 of the constitution.

With regard to the assessment of fairness, the appellants had been drawing attention throughout the proceedings to the professionally qualified knowledge of the bank of the risks of the foreign exchange market, the Constitutional Court said.

On the basis of the 1993 EU directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts and the criteria developed by the Court of Justice for its interpretation, the arguments by the appellants constitute an element of assessment of fairness of a contractual condition that should be taken into account.

As the courts did not take a position on these arguments, they violated the appellants' right to a ruling under Article 22 of the constitution, the Constitutional Court added.

The decision, published on Tuesday, was taken in a five-to-three vote, with constitutional justice Rok Svetlič issuing a dissenting opinion, and Constitutional Court president Matej Accetto issuing a concurring opinion.

The Bank Association of Slovenia said in a response that the Constitutional Court had not come to the conclusion that contracts on loans in Swiss francs were null and void, but that it had mainly examined certain positions taken by courts.

"The Constitutional Court noted that the lower instance courts did not take a position on all essential arguments by the appellants and the evidence. These procedural reasons thus refer to courts and not to banks," the association added.

It also noted a dissenting opinion that says that if banks were to be obliged to take into account (all) personal circumstances of clients in the future, the effect would be unfavourable precisely for borrowers.

The association added that the decision of the Constitutional Court further confirmed that the cases of Swiss franc borrowers should be assessed on an individual basis and that regulating these issues by means of legislation was not appropriate.

This comes as the National Assembly is debating a bill that would distribute the cost of the surge in the value of the Swiss franc in 2015 between banks and some 32,000 borrowers who saw the cost of their debt in euros soar as a result.

Slovenian banks came out strongly against the bill, saying that it retroactively encroached on the lawfully concluded contracts, which was not harmful only for banks but for the entire economy.