National Bank of Moldova presented plan on liquidation of three banks in last March

Chisinau, 5 August /MOLDPRES/ - Governor of the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) Dorin Dragutanu, after a today meeting of the Supreme Security Council, said that he had submitted a plan on liquidation of the three banks under special administration (Banca de Economii (BEM, Savings Bank), Banca Sociala (Social Bank) and Unibank) to the National Committee on Financial Stability as early as in last March 2015.

Yet, to start the liquidation process, „it is necessary that some state's institutions, including the government, take preparation steps. First of all, all pension and social payments should be transferred from Banca de Economii probably to the Posta Moldovei (Moldova's Post) enterprise. And, secondly, all treasury accounts should be transferred from BEM. Thus, if we liquidate the bank and do not transfer the accounts, we block the activity of public institutions,” Dragutanu said.

Dragutanu added that a tender was to be organised in order to select „ a bank or more banks, but this is up to the Finance Ministry”.

Concomitantly, BNM will discuss with commercial banks „the transfer of the other deposits of private persons and legal entities”. „No additional cost will be when liquidating these banks and the deposits of private persons and legal entities are safe,” Dragutanu said.

„Two state guarantees in amount of 14.8 billion lei have been issued in all. This is the maximum possible cost of liquidating these banks. But, I am sure that they will be lower,” Dragutanu specified.

Dorin Dragutanu said that BNM and he had acted in strict accordance with the law. „I am confident that we should have intervened with the special administration as early as in January 2014. Unfortunately, we intervened as late as in November 2014”. The BNM governor said that the decision to introduce the special administration had been postponed, as he had to get the government's guarantee in order to provide emergency credits. Otherwise „we ran the risk of bankrupting these three banks, which would have dragged down the entire banking system," Dragutanu stressed. 

Dragutanu added that, „in order not to put at risk the entire banking system, BNM requested the guarantee of the government to provide emergency credits back in January 2014, but we got it as late as in November 2014”. „These three banks have no future,” Dragutanu added.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor A. Raileanu)