October 18 will be the deadline for submitting bids for the purchase of Alpha Bank Albania, local news provider Monitor reported on Friday.

According to market sources, there are five competitors who have entered the second and most important phase of the process, performing "due diligence".

Due diligence is the process of financial and legal analysis of the company for sale, at the end of which interested buyers can formulate the official binding offer.

The remaining five competitors in the second phase are commercial banks present in the Albanian market. This means that, in case of successful closure of the sales process of Alpha Bank Albania, the banking sector will be further consolidated and the number of banks will be reduced to 11.

Sources say that the banks that have performed due diligence in order to buy Alpha Bank are OTP Bank, Fibank, ABI Bank, Tirana Bank and Union Bank.

The surprise is the absence of the Slovenian bank Nova Ljubjanska Banka (NLB Banka), which had been part of the first phase of expression of interest and which has officially shown its intention to enter the Albanian market. According to experts, NLB may not have been invited in the second phase, because the indicative bid submitted in the first phase was judged too low by the Greek banking group.

However, it is not ruled out that the Slovenes are studying the market to make a more important purchase, oriented perhaps to a bank larger than Alpha Bank. A possible interest was rumored in the market by the Albanian business group "Kastrati", but these rumors have not been confirmed and this entity is not part of the competition either.

According to Monitor sources, the sale of Alpha Bank is one of the most competitive procedures in the process of buying and selling of banks that started in 2015. One of the reasons is the fact that Alpha Bank is perceived as a solid bank compared to other banks sold in last six years. Alpha Bank Albania currently has a ratio of non-performing loans close to the level of 3%, which shows a relatively good quality of assets. Although in recent years the bank's financial performance has been volatile.

Although the deadline for submission of bids is on Monday, the official announcement of the winner of the competition and the signing of the sales contract may take from a minimum of several weeks to months.

According to data for the first half of the year, Alpha Bank Albania owned 4.8% of the Albanian banking market with total assets of about Lek 80 billion.