BANKS: Cyprus Cooperative deposits up €260 mln

Deposits at the Cooperative Central Bank, one of four local banks that underwent EU-wide stress tests last October, were up by €260 mln in November and December, enhancing the state bailed out institution’s surplus of €331 mln.

News reports suggest that despite the outflow of deposits throughout the past year, for fears that savings there too would be subject to a 47.5% bail-in, as was the case at Bank of Cyprus, as part of the national bailout plan imposed by the Eurogroup of Eurozone ministers in March 2013, the Cooperative bank now controls a 27% market share of all deposits on the island, now shrunk at €46 bln.
The Cooperative Bank, presently 99%-owned by the government that pumped €1.5 bln to keep it afloat and has undergone a radical restructuring and downsizing, maintains that deposits held by permanent residents of Cyprus now account for 41% of its balance sheet.
Having introduced a face-lift in December, and announcing the merger of all its ICT and transaction systems into a universal platform only last week, the bank’s management is expected to set out its plans for 2015 during a media briefing this week.