Banks, Financial Services, Latvia

The bank's assets as at December 31, 2017, stood at EUR 3.685 bln, down 4.3% or EUR 164.195 mln from late 2016.

At the end of December the bank had attracted EUR 2.68 billion in deposits, down 7.6% from late 2016, while the bank's loan portfolio was EUR 997.45 mln, down 0.4%.

ABLV Bank's capital and reserves at the end of last year reached EUR 356.98 mln.

As reported, shareholders of ABLV Bank at an extraordinary meeting on Monday made a decision 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.

LETA also reported that 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.