Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You!

• Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You! 
  by Jonathan Weil, http://www.bloomberg.com/
  What’s a Slovenian with several hundred thousand euros in the bank supposed to do? Spread it out among at least a few different banks, that’s what. Or move the money out of the country, while it’s still possible.
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  Imagine what must be on the minds of any savvy depositors still left at Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor d.d., now 79 percent- owned by Slovenia’s government. It was one of only four lenders in October that failed the European Banking Authority’s latest capital-adequacy test, a ritual best known for how lax its standards are. One that flunked was Bank of Cyprus Pcl, where uninsured depositors face 40 percent losses as part of the country’s bailout terms. Another was Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl, also known as Laiki Bank, where uninsured deposits will fare far worse and the bank is being shut.
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  Cypriot banks’ customers were complacent after uninsured deposits went unscathed in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, the first euro-area countries to seek international rescues. Slovenians won’t have that excuse should their country be next.
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  The former Yugoslav republic needs about 3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) of funding this year, while its struggling banks need 1 billion euros of fresh capital, the International Monetary Fund said last week. Slovenia’s central bank this week urged the country’s new government to quickly carry out a plan to recapitalize ailing lenders. It’s a familiar pattern.
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  Oblivious Customers
  The Central Bank of Cyprus warned months ago that the country’s banks needed an infusion of 10 billion euros — which is more than half the size of the nation’s economy — largely because of heavy losses on Greek sovereign debt held by Laiki and Bank of Cyprus. It seems a lot of customers were oblivious to the banks’ deteriorating health, or were confident they would be cared for by somebody else. The country is getting a 10 billion-euro bailout, nine months after it first asked for aid, except none of the money will go to the banks.
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  Suddenly it should be dawning on a lot of Europeans that deposit-guarantee limits matter. In Slovenia, the maximum is 100,000 euros per depositor, the same as in Cyprus. (Deposit- insurance programs vary among the 17 countries that use the euro.) For a few days last week, it looked as if customers at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus would lose even some of their insured deposits, which would have been a sacrilege.
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