The state guarantees for SMEs, deposited with Bank of Cyprus Romania

Those who were worried that they might lose their money deposited with Bank of Cyprus România were unaware that the Romanian state itself through an institution of its own, had 24 million Euros deposited at the Cypriot branch, and the NBR could not afford not to deal with the situation.

Even the Fund for the Guarantee of Small and Medium Enterprises (FNGCIMM) had a deposit of 100 million lei (about 24 million Euros), opened with Bank of Cyprus (which was transferred three weeks ago at Marfin Bank România), according to several sources on the banking market, quoted by Mediafax.

Therefore, when we are speaking about guarantees, we need to also consider which banks they are kept with and how much faith one can have in "the guarantee funds" themselves.

Contacted for comments, by BURSA, Aurel Şaramet, who on the website of the FNGCIMM is mentioned as chairman of the institution, even though he is a defendant in a case concerning bank frauds, told us that the information was not important, regardless of whether it was true or not. He said: "What does it matter whether the information (ed. note: that the FNGCIMM had a deposit opened with the Romanian branch of Bank of Cyprus) was true or not? I can't make any further comments. The NBR should give more details".

We were unable to get a confirmation or a denial of that information from the NBR either.

The head of the Supervision Department of the NBR, Nicolae Cinteză told us: "I don't know the structure of the deposits (ed. note: transferred from Bank of Cyprus România to Marfin). I can't confirm or deny this information. It hasn't interested me who has deposits over there. As long as they are not regulated in Romania, I am not interested in anything more than that".

Voices from the market, consider that even though the fact that the FNGCIMM had a deposit opened with Bank of Cyprus wasn't illegal, still, cautiousness should have been at all time high.

Since it was a subsidiary, the deposits of Bank of Cyprus România were governed by the laws of Cyprus, rather than those of Romania, meaning that they were not guaranteed by the Fund for the Guarantee of Bank Deposits.

According to its website, the FNGCIMM is an institution where the majority shareholder is the Romanian state, represented by the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment.

However, among officials, confusion reigns.

The Minister of the Economy, Varujan Vosganian, told us that the FNGCIMM, is not his responsibility, but rather than of Mrs. Maria Grapini, the delegated minister for SMEs, the Business Environment and Tourism.

Contacted by phone by BURSA, Mrs. Grapini told us that following the reorganization of the Ministry of the Economy, the Fund was recently transferred to the Ministry of Public Finance.

The officials of the Ministry of Finance told us that we need to ask in the jurisdiction of Mr. Liviu Voinea, the delegated minister for the state budget. However, by the time the newspaper went to print, he had not returned our calls.

The FNGCIMM is the institution by which the Government provides guarantees to companies, as well as for mortgage loans taken as part of the "First Home" program.

Since we were talking about such a considerable amount, the deposit opened by the FNGCIMM with Bank of Cyprus România was a decision of the Board of Directors of the Fund, which includes representatives of the Ministry of Public Finance, the Ministry of the Economy and the Agency for SMEs, according to the press agency.

Aurel Şaramet was suspended from the management of the Fund for the Guarantee of Loans for SMEs IMM, as he is being investigated on unconditional bail in the case of the frauds of 22 million Euros, in which former BRD vice-president Claudiu Cercel has been detained.

The defendants in the case of the bank frauds are accused of having illegally obtained from the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment, based on forged documents, the financing of projects for the acquisition of machinery, through companies controlled by the leaders of the faction, according to the Department for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT). The accusations were made public last autumn.

After the decision was made in Cyprus to levy a tax on deposits opened with Bank of Cyprus greater than 100,000 Euros, the Romanian National Bank intervened to save the depositors of the Romanian branch of the Cypriot bank.