WILLEMSTAD – There is light at the end of the tunnel for the Giro Bank. While there are still some finishing touches regarding an agreement, but a good part of the portfolio of performing loans of the Giro Bank will be transferred to the new APC Bank, which belongs to the General Pension Fund Curaçao. When the APC Bank will start its operations is not yet known.
Another issue that will be resolved is that all account holders and deposit holders can dispose of the full amount of the funds they have at Giro Bank.
APC, itself a 39.8 percent shareholder in Giro Bank, is contributing around 110 million guilders for this. The future customers of APC Bank – who previously had to deal with a moratorium for all assets above 10,000 guilders at Giro – will soon have access to their money up to 100,000 guilders; or 10 percent for even higher deposit amounts.
This is necessary to safeguard the liquidity position of the new APC Bank in the start-up phase. Reason why the remainder of the savings of these depositors with higher amounts remains fixed for a period of in principle five years.
On the other hand, they will (eventually) get all their money, which would almost certainly not have been the case without this construction and without a bail-out by the country (government). After all, Giro not only has a negative equity of more than 300 million, but also a debt to the bridging loan provided by the CBCS in the context of the emergency regulation of almost 270 million.
This is at the same time one of the points that still require further interpretation and decision-making, namely the repayment of this amount that the Central Bank has advanced to Giro in recent years. It is beyond any discussion that this must and will be settled, but that paying off will also take years and the question is what price the Country of Curaçao will be charged for this. The official, or legal, interest is 4.5 percent; that is the so-called lending rate plus 2 percentage points.
The Rhuggenaath government has taken the fate of these account holders into account and promised that everyone – sooner or later – will get their money back. Everyone in the community will contribute to this.
