Banks, Estonia, Financial Services

The Guarantee Fund is about to wrap up the Versobank case. Liquidators of Versobank have identified that the bank's assets exceed liabilities and thus, the liquidators are now paying out the deposits themselves as well, the press service of the Financial Supervision Authority said.

Director of the Guarantee Fund, Riin Heinaste, told that the volume of guaranteed deposits was altogether approximately 92.7 mln euros, of which the Guarantee Fund has made payments in the amount of 90.2 mln euros. 

"Guaranteed deposits have not bee

n reimbursed in the amount of approximately 500,000 euros, mainly because the respective depositors have not submitted account information on where the reimbursement should be transferred nor have they expressed the wish to receive compensation in cash via an agent bank. The right of claim of the depositors will be valid for three years," Heinaste said.

She added that as for the rest, liquidators have also already made payments: the Guarantee Fund's task does not involve the reimbursement of the deposits of 124 customers in the approximate amount of 57.9 mln euros.

In the extent reimbursed to the depositors by the Guarantee Fund, the claims against Versobank have been transferred to the Guarantee Fund. In the framework of the liquidation procedure, the fund has received back approximately 77.1 mln euros and a claim of approximately 13.1 mln euros is still in effect, Heinaste added.

The European Central Bank (ECB), as proposed by the Estonian Financial Supervision Authority, on March 26 withdrew the authorization of Versobank AS to operate as a credit institution due to serious and long-lasting breaches of legal requirements, particularly concerning the prevention of money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.

In March, Eero Kaup, Viljar Alnek and Ksenia Kravtsenko from KPMG Baltics OU and Law Office KPMG Law OU were appointed as the bank's liquidators.

Versobank has been operating in Estonia since fall 1999. According to unaudited figures, Versobank's assets in 2017 grew to 294 mln euros and net profit totaled 300,000 euros.