European Union is robbing its citizens' bank accounts. 9.9% to be confiscated.

[Kluge]

It wouldnt be so bad if they reduced your outstanding loans by 9%

... No, that'd be worse, because then they'll soon have to take 25% from deposits.... but I guess they'll take 15% off debt, and just keep kicking the can down the road. Hey, you should be an economist! 

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[stevegee58]

Some appropriate song lyrics to start your morning (shades of Great Britain in the sixties):

Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman

[BitcoinAshley]

Are you a Cyprus national? I wonder if it is legal to seize funds of foreigners who don't reside in that country, don't pay taxes and don't use public infrastructure. I know that Cyprus is a tax haven for Poles, so I will watch out for their reactions.

That's the point... it's not legal, and they're MAKING it legal.
Because, you know, that's what they do. Make laws and stuff.

[TimJBenham]

In the US, they would just print 11.1% more money. Same effect, but people don't realize.

If is not the effect at all. The credit card balances, mortgages etc are not affected at all only the savings are impacted. So if someone has 100,000 EUR in the bank and a 100,000 EUR mortgage. The mortgage stays the same but the bank account is now 91100 EUR. This is way worse that simply printing 11.1% more money.

I at first wondered what the fuss was about: haven't many governments devalued savings by that much or more year after year through deliberate inflation and currency devaluation? but that process, while not fair, is more democratic than the haircut. Debts and savings devalue alike. but the haircut targets one specific asset with no commensurate devaluation of liabilities. People with nil savings, some of whom could be wealthy individuals who have borrowed to accumulate real assets, are unaffected while retired people living on their savings are hard hit.

[zeroday]

Today I got answer from my lawyer in Cyprus. It seems that not only bank DEPOSITS will be affected, but also CURRENT and SAVINGS accounts.

So, those EU IMF guys are just legalizing stealing and making a precedent. In other words it means: "Do you have problems in your family's budget? No problem! Just Rob a bank and tell in court that it was necessary! It will be legal..."

[Vladimir]

Design your own bail-in : http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/BV/Cyprus.html

Too bad they have forgotten about possible 2 billions haircut from bondholder and the gasprom deal.

[zeroday]

World from Berlin: 'Last Euro-Crisis Taboo Broken'
"Banks closed, money gone, confidence destroyed. The last taboo of the euro crisis has been broken, and it's now reaching directly into savings accounts.
On Tuesday the Cypriot banks will face turbulence. Greeks and Spaniards who can't get to Switzerland will put their money under their pillows.
The crisis surrounding the euro has unexpectedly reached a new level of escalation. German politicians are also to blame -- they are playing a dangerous game."

Source: spiegel.de

'Legalised bank robbery' as EU plans to raid savings in Cyprus.

Markets and savers across Europe have been left panicking as a plan to take money directly from private citizens’ savings accounts nears fruition.

"Despite reassurances from Brussels that Cyprus is a special case and that indiscriminate levies won't be a common policy tool,
depositors across Europe are doubting their sincerity and are fearing that a new precedent has been set for other debt-laden euro zone countries,"
Jonathan Sudaria, dealer at Capital Spreads, said.

"It's as if the Europeans are holding up a neon sign, written in Greek and Italian, saying 'Time to stage a run on your banks!'"
US economist Paul Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

Source: uk.finance


The crash of banking system is just beginning....

[ThiagoCMC]

....

The crash of banking system is just beginning....

Yes! Finally!   

[Dalkore]

that's an absolute disgrace, they can just decide to steal 9.9% of your money and there's nothing you can do about it.

Wow what a great offer, deposit your cash with us and we'll steal 10% of it to pay off debts made by corrupt bankers

It is showing you the real power and control in the banking system.   This could happen anywhere, it was passed as a law and the banks complied. 

[stevegee58]

The crash of banking system is just beginning....

Bah.  A week from now no one will be talking about it.

[cedivad]

These southern-tier countries were serial defaulters.  By constantly devaluing their currency and multiple sovereign defaults, interest rates in these countries were very high.  The Euro provided them with a stable currency and lower interest rates.  While this allowed the formerly-poor to achieve a much higher lifestyle, the fact is for the better part of the last 20 years these countries have lived well above their means.  Looks like it might be time to pay the piper and it will not be pretty.

Too much propaganda.

[zeroday]

The crash of banking system is just beginning....

Bah.  A week from now no one will be talking about it.

Who knows. This is, probably, the first precedence of legal stealing from whole population's bank accounts, and, this explicitly shows that nobody's money are now safe in the EU banks.
It can provoke panic and people will rush to the banks to get cash to store it at home, which in its turn, start chain reaction of collapsing banks. Similar situation happened in Latvia few years ago where several banks defaulted after the most of the money were withdrawn.

[mobodick]

Well, if their current account contract says that you can withdraw any amount anytime, and they do not possess the capability of making good of such a promise, it IS fraud.

No, it's not fraud. We all understand under what circumstances the bank can and cannot keep that promise. It's not a secret.

The contract is saying that you can request a withdrawal at any time. It is totally obvious that the bank can't process a withdrawal if they don't have the money. They could add that clause to the contract, but there would be no point -- everyone understands that already.

This is the tradeoff we choose to make in exchange for an account that bears interest, rather than paying someone to lock our money in a vault. It's a good deal for the depositors. (Unless the government decides to renege on it, but that could happen without fractional reserves.)

There is no fair tradeoff in a situation along the lines you argue because interest bearing accounts are required for not having your money inflated into oblivion.
When banks that are supposed to be invested in long-term stable investments start falling over because of sub-prime mumbo-jumbo you know that you're being fooled and that the actual risk, or tradeoff as you call it, is misrepresented by said banks.
As it turns out, it is a good deal untill the invisible piramid collapses.

[mobodick]

It's not a bank's job to give its customers an education. If they don't understand how banks work, odds are they don't really want to know and I don't see it being reasonable for a bank to try to educate them.

I want to remind you that the problems we see in europe are because the global banking system is successfull in misrepresenting risk. So fuck the fucking banks. They are scum, even amongst themselfs.

[btc24]

These robbery will definitely skyrocket the bitcoin price and value.

[theowalpott]

You people do realise that the x% they're deducting will be paid back in shares in the bank that your deposit is in?

It's not stealing, it's basically saying "The banks don't have enough to pay the money you lent us, so here's a share in our business instead". The other option is just to let the banks fail and people will likely lose more of their money.

I think it's a good thing to highlight that choosing a bank to put your money into should be a serious consideration... suck for those who lose out when the value of those shares inevitably drop in price, but there ya go.

[minorman]

The crash of banking system is just beginning....

Bah.  A week from now no one will be talking about it.

Ask yourself: If you were a resident of France, Spain, the UK, Greece or any other bankrupt country in Europe, why would you not run down to the bank and pull out everything tomorrow? Aside from altruism, what possible reason would you justify not doing so?

If I lived in any broke country I'd RUN - not walk - to withdraw everything (including my pension if at all possible) ASAP!

[Vladimir]

The crash of banking system is just beginning....

Bah.  A week from now no one will be talking about it.

Ask yourself: If you were a resident of France, Spain, the UK, Greece or any other bankrupt country in Europe, why would you not run down to the bank and pull out everything tomorrow? Aside from altruism, what possible reason would you justify not doing so?

If I lived in any broke country I'd RUN - not walk - to withdraw everything (including my pension if at all possible) ASAP!

hmm... let me take this one....

Because you already have nothing there to be concerned about.

[TimJBenham]

This is, probably, the first precedence of legal stealing from whole population's bank accounts,

I'm pretty sure Argentina confiscated savings a few years ago.

[johnyj]

I just heard about that EU officials suggested to raise that tax to 15.6% for deposits above 100,000 EURO, while accunts below that number will not be taxed