The consensus on the need to privatize the four leading state-controlled banks by selling a strategic interest to a foreign institution stretches from the central bank to the finance ministry and into the boardrooms of the institutions themselves. But there is no guarantee that this agreement will extend to the new Czech cabinet which will have the power to take the final decision.
So the country's three largest banks, Komercni Bank, Ceska Sporitelna and Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka (SCOB), already reeling from law changes, a currency crisis and floods that have caused a huge drop in profits and highlighted the need for new capital and substantial management restructuring, begin the new year facing what could be a lengthy period in limbo.
Other sales have enough momentum to go through, whatever the political changes. The sale to Nomura of 36% of Investicni a Postovni Banka (IPB), whose chief executive Jiri Tesar was arrested in April on fraud charges, is close to being finalized, say Prague bankers. Talks on the sale of the fifth largest bank, Agrobanka, to GE Capital are also well advanced.
Czech bankers also take some comfort from the sale, which was expected to go ahead on January 1, of Zivnostenska, the seventh largest bank which was privatized in 1992.