If there’s one thing that Australia has going for it at the moment it’s the duo of a well regulated banking industry coupled with a strong economy that has seen us weather some of the worst financial crisis we’ve seen in decades. The Global Financial Crisis came and went without leaving much of a lasting impact and for the most part we’ve been immune to the Eurozone Crisis. For an industry that relies on trust you really couldn’t find a better environment than Australia at the moment as compared to nearly every other place on earth the trust in our banking system is extremely high.
If I was to choose a place that is the exact opposite my country of choice would of course be Cyprus. For the uninitiated Cyprus is a small island nation of about 1 million people or so and is renown for being something of a tax haven. This is due to its extremely favourable tax rates on savings accounts there and led to the banks storing more wealth than the entire nation’s GDP. When everything’s going well this isn’t much of a problem as the steady flow of capital helps keep both the nation and the banks afloat. However when things turn bad, like they have done during the Eurozone Crisis, what you have is an island nation that’s left in a rather difficult situation as it lacks the tools to deal with such colossal entities failing.
The issues stem from the Greek financial crisis as the Cyprian banks had amassed some €22 billion worth of Greek private sector debt. As a result of the writing down of much of this debt in order to save Greece (and thus the Euro itself) the Cyprian banks were hit hard by this and in turn had their credit rating downgraded. This lead to a downward spiral of bad debt piling up, banks defaulting on loan payments and the Cyprian government, with a GDP below that of the debt their banks had amassed, being completely unable to deal with it. So like any other EU member they approached European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank for a bailout. They were able to secure one however before they could get it they needed to raise some €7 billion and the method by which they did this was, to put it bluntly, incredibly retarded.
The initial proposal, according to IVA, was to raise these funds was a one off tax on all savings deposits with accounts under €100,000 losing 6.7% and above that losing 9.9%. They began musing this particular deal over the weekend in order to be able to enact the legislation before everyone had a chance to get their money out but as soon as news began to spread the beginnings of a bank run started taking shape. ATMs were quickly emptied of their cash and long lines formed as people tried to get as much of their cash out of Cyprian banks before they were slugged with the tax. The initial proposal didn’t get through however and the Cyprian government had to order the banks not to open and they’ve been closed ever since.
News reaches us today that the Cyprian government has managed to reach a resolution with the one off tax now being restricted to accounts over €100,000. What the particular rate will be though remains a mystery but you can guarantee it will have to be higher than the initial proposal to make up for the revenue lost on accounts below that threshold. The deal will also see one of the bigger banks broken down into a toxic asset dump and a small, feasible business but there have been calls for the same thing to happen to its largest bank. No matter what they end up doing however the damage has been done to their banking industry and I’m not sure it’ll ever be able to recover.
You see banking relies on a certain amount of trust, especially when it comes to things like savings accounts. You trust your bank won’t lose your money and, in the case of the government, you trust that they won’t come after it unless you’re directly responsible for something. The Cyprian people, and their foreign depositors, are essentially being punished for the mistakes of the banks and there’s no amount of guarantees that they can make that something like this won’t happen again. Thus the only smart thing for anyone to do is to get their money out of there as soon as humanly possible lest the same thing repeat itself in the future.
It’s not like this couldn’t happen elsewhere, indeed New Zealand is considering a similar move, but the reputation Cyprus had as a great place to store capital is now in tatters. Future depositors will think twice before sending money there again because it’s clear that the tiny nation can’t deal with the mistakes of its banks due to the huge influence they have their economy. After the tax goes down I doubt any of the large creditors will be keeping their money in there for long and its likely a bank run will still occur once the banks reopen their doors. With that the finance industry in Cyprus will be dealt a crippling blow, one which it will be unlikely to recover from.
It might be for the good of the country in the long term however since no one will store capital there any more it’s unlikely they’ll get into a situation like this again. I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing though as it takes an axe to what was once a very profitable industry for the Cyprian people. Realistically though the blame for all of this lies directly with their government, one that should have taken better precautions to avoid a situation like this in the first place.
The debt advisors are those people whose contacts you must o have in your phone.
