10 July 2015
FBME LIMITED (FBME), AS THE HOLDING COMPANY OF FBME BANK LIMITED, RESPONDS TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT BELOW OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF CYPRUS (CBC) AS RESOLUTION AUTHORITY: WE HAVE SET OUT IN SECTIONS A TRANSLATION OF THE CBC STATEMENT RELEASED ON 10 JULY 2015. FBME’S RESPONSE IS GIVEN IN ITALICS AFTER EACH SECTION.
8 July 2015
Customers of FBME Bank’s Cyprus branch are advised that payouts from their accounts have been moved to one a week of EUR 1,000, rather than the daily amounts of EUR 200, which has been the rule since early March. The registration of requests has to be completed by noon Cyprus time on Wednesdays; the Administrator, Andrew Andronikou will review documentation and sign cheques at 4.30 pm on Thursdays, and the cheques themselves will be issued on Friday afternoons. The process has started from the week commencing 6 July.
3 July 2015
As temperatures rise in the Cyprus summer, newspapers in the Republic are using the analogy to say that the heat has been turned up on the Central Bank of Cyprus. Beset on every side by criticism, the CBC is said to be directionless and decision-making, at least as far as FBME’s Cyprus branch is concerned, is now almost totally absent.
23 June 2015
When Dinos Christofides walked out of the FBME branch on Friday 15 May 2015 he made it clear to those to whom he spoke that he was far from pleased at the way he had been treated by the Central Bank of Cyprus. Immediately prior to his departure – and before the owners, directors or management of the Bank had been informed that he was going – it seems he had three overwhelming priorities.
22 June 2015
Reports in newspapers in Cyprus have identified the link between rising prices in the consumer market and the resumption of monopolistic practices by JCC Payment Systems. The stories have appeared in the Politis’ 17 June edition and in Simerini on 18 June.
18 June 2015
It has now become apparent that there does not seem to be anyone really in charge of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) governing its actions towards FBME’s Cyprus branch. Well, no one senior that is.
17 June 2015
Clearly, the various investigations into the behaviour of the Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus and her minions have caused the CBC to appear rudderless (as we noted before) and also de-masted, holed and run aground. This is not, it goes without saying, a good place for such an august and potentially influential governmental institution to be in.
16 June 2015
Eleven months after the CBC’s unprecedented decision to take over FBME’s operations in Cyprus, public concern escalates with local media reflecting this sentiment. The island’s Cyprus Weekly, English newspaper published the following article.
“When the Central Bank of Cyprus took the unprecedented decision in July 2014 to first suspend, and then attempt to sell, the operations of FBME Bank, the Cyprus branch of the Tanzania-based bank, following as yet unproven allegations concerning money laundering, it could not have foreseen the potential risks associated.
(*The more change, the more things stay the same)
11 June 2015
A letter from a Limassol law firm sent to FBME staff on behalf of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) and its Administrator reminds employees of their obligation not to engage in the disclosure of information to the media and in particular to one website (whichever that may be). It actually describes such disclosures as ‘leaks’, a description redolent of Watergate or the fight against totalitarian dictatorship.
10 June 2015
As tensions rise again around the performance of senior officials of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC), it has been recommended once more that the institution should develop ‘Fit and Proper’ testing for its own directors and management.
