"In spite of that I hope the first transfer of loans to the bad bank will be made at the end of June," Kranjec, whose role gives him a seat on the European Central Bank's governing council, said in an interview for the local Top TV channel.

The Commission said earlier on Wednesday Slovenia should hire independent external advisers by June to conduct a system-wide bank asset quality review which should be completed by year end.

Kranjec also said he was "confident" independent reviews will show that the Bank of Slovenia's estimates of bad loans in local banks were accurate.

Slovenian banks, mostly-state owned, are nursing some 7 billion euros of bad loans, equal to 20 percent of GDP.

(Reporting by Marja Novak; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)