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Run On Swedish Bank In Latvia
Latvia's largest bank is trying to contain a run among depositors gripped by fears of the bank's imminent collapse.The panic among Swedish-owned Swedbank's depositors began Sunday after rumors spread that the financial institution was facing legal and liquidity problems in Estonia and Sweden. Swedbank's Latvian chief Maris Mancinskis on Monday called the rumors "absurd." He said the bank is functioning normally and all depositors will have access to their funds via bank machines. Why does this remind me of Kevin Bacon in 'Animal House', yelling at the panicked crowd: "Remain calm! All is well! ALL IS WELL!" Mancinskis said some 10,000 Latvians withdrew over 10 million lats ($20 million) on Sunday. Latvia's 10th largest bank, Latvijas Krajbanka, is currently being liquidated after regulators uncovered fraud on a massive scale. Depositors were left without access to their money for days. U.S. law has been recently changed so that now banks, on their own, can declare a bank holiday of up to 2 weeks, if they think a run is in progress. This includes 'demand' accounts previously thought to be sacrosanct. During the Great Depression, the federal government made some banks have holidays from 3 to 300 days. Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-12-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=335101 |