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It is more than 10 years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but Andreas Treichl still hasn’t forgiven himself for what he sees as the biggest mistake he made in the run-up to the financial crisis.
“I had always been vehemently opposed to currency-mismatched lending to individuals,” says the veteran chief executive of Erste Group. “Everyone in Austria thought it was normal, the bankers all had FX mortgages themselves, but I hated it.
“Yet I ended up owning a bank in Hungary that had the highest market share in FX lending in the country. I don’t know why I didn’t stop it. I was too chicken.”
Treichl takes some comfort from the fact that he didn’t make the same mistake twice.
“When we went into Romania, I said we won’t issue a single Swiss franc loan,” he says. “As a result, we lost a third of our market share in 12 months – but I stood firm.
