Two-Day Moratorium on Operations of Sberbank in Croatia – Daily Withdrawals Limited at EUR 960

The Croatian National Bank (HNB) has announced that a two-day moratorium has been declared and that, during that time, Croatian citizens and companies will be able to handle an amount of up to 7,280 kunas (EUR 960) a day. The minister of finance of Croatia, Zdravko Maric, stated that the Government would insist at the European bodies to allow the country the possibility of recovering Sberbank Croatia and pointed out that there was enough money in the budget to pay the insured deposits of its clients in case of liquidation.

In the past days, in Croatia, Sberbank has been facing increased pressures by the clients and requests for premature withdrawals of savings and deposits, and due to the resulting impact on the liquidity, HNB adopted the decision declaring a two-day moratorium on payments, which expires Tuesday midnight.

The announcement made by HNB says that, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU and the USA have adopted a set of sanctions, which have had a swift and significant impact on Sberbank’s operations too.

Due to the sudden jeopardization of the liquidity, the European Central Bank, which controls this bank directly, announced yesterday that Sberbank was going down or was likely to go down, the press release says. The Single Resolution Board (SRB) has determined, it is added, that the bank is failing or is likely to fail and adopted the decision on a moratorium on the operations of Sberbank, based on which HNB adopted the decision on a moratorium.

At the Government’s session, the minister of finance said that, in case of bank liquidation, the system of deposit or savings and insurance would be activated.

He said that, before the crisis, Sberbank had around 70,000 depositors, most of them in a system of insured deposits of EUR 100,000. He also pointed out that the Croatian budget was strong enough for the payment of the fully insured savings deposits in a period of seven to ten days. The total amount of the savings deposits is 3.82 billion kunas.

Maric also said that the operations of Fortenova Group, whose ownership structure features Russian banks, were stable.

The vice-governor of HNB, Roman Subic, told the press that, from Wednesday, there would be a stable situation regarding Sberbank Croatia.

Sberbank Croatia has expressed regret over the inconvenience experienced by its clients, business partners and employees, but said that they are “working hard to responsibly resolve this unexpected situation in the quickest way possible”.

Croatian National Bank

HNB

Sberbank

Sberbanka Hrvatska

Sberbank Croatia

Ministry of Finance of Croatia

European Central Bank

Single Resolution Board

SRB

Fortenova Group

Zdravko Marić

Roman Šubić

two day moratorium

liquidity

liquidation

sanctions