It also said banks made a combined net profit of 290.6 million euros ($308.7 million) in the first nine months of 2016 versus a profit of 162.7 million euros in the same period of 2015, partly due to cost cuts.

The Slovenian government had to pour more than 3 billion euros into local banks in 2013 to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of bad loans. Since then banks' credit activity has been falling, with the amount of all loans down by 6.9 percent year-on-year in September.

"The contraction of credit activity slowed down in September ... while all banks have a positive dynamics of growth of loans to households," the central bank said.

While loans to non-financial firms were 9.7 percent lower than a year ago, loans to households were up by 2.6 percent.

Banks' combined balance sheet assets have fallen by about 3 percent since December 2015.

Although the government controls more than a third of the country's banking sector, a number of foreign banks also operate in Slovenia, including France's Societe Generale, Italy's Unicredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, Russia's Sberbank and Austria's Sparkasse and Addiko Bank.