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One worker at Bulgaria’s Corporate Commercial Bank knew panic was setting in when she spotted colleagues among the anxious depositors lined up to withdraw cash from the troubled bank. The alarm came in part because the week before, on June 13, with television news crews filming, Bulgarian state prosecutors had raided a building in Sofia that housed Corpbank offices. Though both the prosecutors and the bank said the raid did not target Corpbank – the building housed other companies as well – customers soon began to withdraw their savings. Within days, the Central Bank had seized control of the bank,...

Some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it, the BBC has learnt. Listeners have told Radio 4's Money Box they were stopped from withdrawing amounts ranging from £5,000 to £10,000. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November. The bank says it has now changed its guidance to staff. New rules Stephen Cotton went to his local HSBC branch this month to withdraw £7,000 from his instant access savings account to pay back a loan from...

HSBC is imposing restrictions on large cash withdrawals raising a number of red flags. The BBC reports that some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November for their own good: “We ask our customers about the purpose of large cash withdrawals when they are unusual… the reason being we have an obligation to protect our customers, and to minimise the opportunity for financial crime.” As one customer responded:...

Banks Warn Fed They May Have To Start Charging Depositors Tyler Durden 11/24/2013 15:24 -0500 The Fed's Catch 22 just got catchier. While most attention in the recently released FOMC minutes fell on the return of the taper as a possibility even as soon as December (making the November payrolls report the most important ever, ever, until the next one at least), a less discussed issue was the Fed's comment that it would consider lowering the Interest on Excess Reserves to zero as a means to offset the implied tightening that would result from the reduction in the monthly flow...

As per rumors first reported in the overnight summary article, the Cypriot finance minister has joined the other rats dumping the sinking island: CYPRUS FINANCE MINISTER SARRIS SAYS HE RESIGNSSARRIS SAYS RESIGNS DUE TO ONGOING INVESTIGATION IN CYPRUSSARRIS SAYS CYPRUS PRESIDENT ACCEPTED RESIGNATION Investigation? Did he also funnel cash into London ahead of Confiscation Day? But fear not, all shall be well, the now ex-finmin promises: SARRIS SAYS CAPITAL CONTROLS WILL BE EASED GRADUALLY Surely, if this great news doesn't send the S&P to new all time highs, nothing will.From Sigma Live:His resignation, submitted by the Minister of Finance...

Don't be surprised when the global elite confiscate money from your bank account one day. They are already very clearly telling you that they are going to do it. Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem is the president of the Eurogroup - an organization of eurozone finance ministers that was instrumental in putting together the Cyprus "deal" - and he has said publicly that what has just happened in Cyprus will serve as a blueprint for future bank bailouts. What that means is that when the chips are down, they are going to come after YOUR money. So why should anyone...

What would you do if you woke up one day and discovered that the banksters had "legally" stolen about 80 percent of your life savings? Most people seem to assume that most of the depositors that are getting ripped off in Cyprus are "Russian oligarchs" or "wealthy European tycoons", but the truth is that they are only just part of the story. As you will see below, there are small businesses and aging retirees that have been absolutely devastated by the wealth confiscation that has taken place in Cyprus. Many businesses can no longer meet their payrolls or pay their...

Cyprus Shows Your Savings Will Be Stolen! UK Theft Is By Means Of High Inflation Economics / Credit Crisis 2013March 25, 2013 - 03:24 AM GMT By: Nadeem Walayat Different faces but the same old story is being replayed in a small part of the Euro-zone, Cyprus, and that story is one of the Cypriot banking crime syndicate gambling with depositor funds on the debt markets, this time it's Greek bonds, yes, these master-eds of the universe used depositor funds to pile into soon to go bankrupt Greece because of the high yields they offered so that the bankster's could...

With news this evening that the Cypriot banks will not now be re-opening tomorrow (as perhaps - as we noted earlier - a little more of those precious deposits leaked away during the closures than expected): CYPRUS BANKS TO REMAIN CLOSED THROUGH MARCH 27: CENTRAL BANK We thought it useful to consider Cyprus in relation to the longest bank closures in history. Cyprus has now shutdown its banking system longer than Argentina, Ecuador, and Uruguay and as far as President Anastasiades comments that capital controls are temporary - we can only hope for the depositors sake - that it's not...

The decision of the government in Cyprus to simply take money out of people’s bank accounts there sent shock waves around the world. People far removed from that small island nation had to wonder: “Can this happen here?” The economic repercussions of having people feel that their money is not safe in banks can be catastrophic. Banks are not just warehouses where money can be stored. They are crucial institutions for gathering individually modest amounts of money from millions of people and transferring that money to strangers whom those people would not directly entrust it to. Multibillion-dollar corporations, whose economies...

It was a scene familiar to any nostalgia buff: all-night lines waiting for the banks (first in Ohio, then in Maryland) to open; pompous but mendacious assurances by the bankers that all is well and that the people should go home; a stubborn insistence by depositors to get their money out; and the consequent closing of the banks by government, while at the same time the banks were permitted to stay in existence and collect the debts due them by their borrowers. In other words, instead of government protecting private property and enforcing voluntary contracts, it deliberately violated the property...

One could tell from the rise in the futures this evening that a deal was reached, but conflicting reports had me wondering "what deal?" The story now is that president Nicos Anastasiades threatened to resign if the terms were not acceptable (a nice strategy), and euro leaders agreed to a 10 billion euro bailout. Reuters reports Revamped Cyprus deal to close bank, force losses. Cyprus clinched a last-ditch deal with international lenders on Monday for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout that will shut down its second largest bank and inflict heavy losses on uninsured depositors, including wealthy Russians....

Savers in Cyprus could face losing one-quarter of their bank deposits under new proposals being discussed by the government as ministers flew to Brussels to salvage a European bailout. The new bank levy would only apply to people with more than €100,000 (£85,260) in their accounts, according to the finance minister, Michael Sarris, who also said that significant progress had been made in talks with European officials. President Nicos Anastasiades travelled to Brussels to work out an alternative plan to raise funds that would allow the country to qualify for an international bailout. Cyprus must raise €5.8bn (£4.9bn) before Monday...

The global elite have now proven that when the chips are down they are going to go after any big pile of money that they think they can get their hands on. That means that no bank account, no retirement fund and no stock portfolio on earth is safe. Up until now, most people assumed that private bank accounts were untouchable and that deposit insurance actually meant something. Now we see that there is no pile of money that is considered "off limits" by the global elite and deposit insurance means absolutely nothing. The number one thing that any financial...

Cyprus is a beta test. The banksters are trying to commit bank robbery in broad daylight, and they are eager to see if the rest of the world will let them get away with it. Cyprus was probably chosen because it is very small (therefore nobody will care too much about it) and because there is a lot of foreign (i.e. Russian) money parked there. The IMF and the EU could have easily bailed out Cyprus without any trouble whatsoever, but they purposely decided not to do that. Instead, they decided that this would be a great time to test...

Cyprus --- officially the Republic of Cyprus --- is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt.  I had to search Wikipedia for that information as I, like most of you, wasn't quite sure exactly where this island was.   This eurozone country, with population just north of one million, three-quarters of whom are Greek and most of the others Turkish, dominated the weekend financial news for those of us who were paying attention.  In a stunning shift from previous aid packages, EU...

Greeks are pulling cash out of banks, stocking up on food in panic ahead of make-or-break election Sunday Dina Kyriakidou and George Georgiopoulos, Reuters Jun 13, 2012 – 8:41 AM ET ATHENS — Greeks pulled their cash out of the banks and stocked up with food ahead of a cliffhanger election on Sunday that many fear will result in the country being forced out of the euro. Bankers said up to 800 million euros (US$1 billion) were leaving major banks daily and retailers said some of the money was being used to buy pasta and canned goods, as fears of...

Here we go: •EU SOURCES HAVE DISCUSSED IMPOSING CAPITAL CONTROLS AS WORST CASE SCENARIO IF GREECE LEAVES EUROZONE - RTRS •IMPOSING BORDER CHECKS, LIMITING ATM WITHDRAWALS ALSO PART OF WORST-CASE SCENARIO PLANNING - EU SOURCES - RTRS [....] In other words, that money you thought you had... You don't really have it. We can only hope this message was not meant to restore confidence and prevent future bank runs. Because if Europe wanted a continental bank run, it may have just gotten one. This is getting scary very fast. Full piece from Reuters: European finance officials have discussed as a...

Excerpts: Worries about a run on Greek banks has rattled Athens this week, after savers withdrew at least 700 million euros ($890 million US) on Monday alone,.. Data shows depositors have also taken flight from banks in Belgium, France and Italy. And on Thursday, Spain’s Bankia was reported to have seen more than 1 billion euros drained by its customers in the past week. In Greece, sources at two banks told Reuters that withdrawals on Tuesday had taken place at about the same rate as on Monday. It is not only Greeks who are worried about their savings. Data shows...

The country's economy is in a meltdown, raising fears that Greece will exit the Euro Zone completely and default on its huge pile of debt. Political leaders in Athens were due to discuss an emergency government Wednesday to deal with a possible run on banks as it emerged Greeks withdrew almost $900 million in a single day, fearing their country could crash out of the euro currency by the end of the week. An interim government would take the country through to new elections on June 17, triggered by the collapse on Tuesday of talks to form a coalition between...