In the third quarter of 2005, Bulgaria's commercial banks remitted 383 mln levs in addition to the minimum reserves they are required to keep with the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) after overstepping the credit growth limit set by the central bank. These figures compare to 236 mln levs in the second quarter. Parallel to the growth in the remittance volume, the number of banks in breach of BNB's restrictions doubled to eight. The BNB updated in early November the rules on loan provisions and minimum required reserves in a bid to dampen consumer lending and credit growth overall. Back then, the experts of the central bank said the rate of deterioration of the quality of consumer and mortgage loans was accelerating and the relative share of regularly serviced consumer credits had dipped below that of the regularly serviced commercial loans which contravenes international banking standards. The BNB has set the quarterly limit on credit growth at 5%, the half-yearly at 12,5%, the 9-month at 17.5% and the annual at 23%. The banks that have exceeded the limit by less than 1% will have to tie up with the central bank double the amount by which the growth cap has been overshot; a breach of between 1% and 2% will warrant the remittance of triple the amount while a breach of over 2% will require the remittance of quadruple the amount by which the growth limit has been overshot. The minimum required reserves which the banks keep with the central bank do not yield any income. However, the credits/deposits interest gap makes it more profitable for the local banks to remit additional amounts to the reserves rather than scale down their lending operations. The BNB expects that its measures would curb lending to 30% by the year's end and to 25% by the first quarter of 2006.