Banks, Financial Services, Latvia

She said that from March 3 to July 9, Citadele Bank paid out guaranteed deposits to 8,498 ABLV Bank’s clients, or 39% of the total number of clients entitled to the government-guaranteed compensations.

During the past four months, ABLV Bank’s local clients received 89% of the total amount available to residents. “Latvian residents – both individuals and legal entities - have so far been more active in claiming the guaranteed compensations,” Praulina said. To date, Citadele has paid out EUR 41.6 mln in guaranteed deposits to 5,173 resident individuals and legal entities, or 89% of the total guaranteed deposits available to the residents.

In the segment of foreign clients, guaranteed deposits have been paid to 3,325 non-resident clients, or 25% of their total number. Guaranteed deposits paid out to non-resident clients have so far totaled EUR 171,7 mln, or 40% of the total amount available to the non-resident clients.

As reported, Citadele Bank has been paying out the guaranteed deposits to ABLV Bank’s clients since March 3.

The Finance and Capital Market Commission (FKTK) representative Jelena Lebedeva told the press earlier that 87.8% of the bank’s customers will receive their deposits at full amount, including 97.8% of domestic customers.

ABLV Bank has 22,830 customers in total, including 8,468 domestic customers of which 7,418 are individuals and 1,050 are legal entities. 20,051 customers will be paid out their deposits in full, while 2,779 customers will not receive full payout, of them 184 are domestic customers, mostly legal entities.

LETA also reported that shareholders of ABLV Bank made a decision in February to start the liquidation process in order to protect interests of its clients and creditors. ABLV Bank believes that in this way it will be possible to ensure active protection of its customers, the bank said in a statement.

The Latvian financial regulator, the Finance and Capital Market Commission, acting on the instructions from the European Central Bank (ECB), has ordered ABLV Bank to stop all payments as of February 19 following a report by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of Treasury about ABLV Bank's involvement in international money laundering schemes and corruption. On February 24, the Finance and Capital Market Commission made a decision on occurrence of unavailability of deposits at ABLV Bank.

At the end of September 2017, ABLV Bank was the third largest bank in Latvia by assets. The bank's majority shareholders Olegs Fils, Ernests Bernis and Nika Berne own, directly and indirectly, 87.03 % of the bank's share capital.