20 October 2014

The Cyprus branch of FBME Bank reopened this morning on the return to the office of the branch Administrator, appointed by the Central Bank of Cyprus. As we reported, the branch was prevented from conducting business during the course of last week on the instructions of the Administrator while he went on leave.

He is back now and approvals on transactions will presumably resume on the same basis as before: those Cyprus branch account holders whose requests he sanctions can obtain cheques for up to EUR 10,000 a day. Other account holders located abroad and unable to be represented here in Cyprus cannot gain access to their accounts. And yet more have their accounts frozen on the orders of the Administrator (who has yet to explain why). So it is a reopening of a sort, you might say!

While he had a week off we assume the Administrator had time to think about answering some of the questions he was a posed a month ago. We’ll get back to those.