De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has started to repay 23,000 duped savers of the bankrupt Amsterdam Trade Bank (ATB). After a few working days, applicants should be able to access their funds again. Up to 100,000 euros will be paid out.
Past Friday ATB went bankrupt. That is very exceptional. The last bank to go bankrupt in the Netherlands was DSB Bank in 2009. Even then, account holders were compensated by other banks, but a joint fund of banks did not yet exist. Since 2016, banks have been putting money aside in case one falls. How does that fund work and what happens if a bank is declared bankrupt?
Payment system locked
ATB is a subsidiary of the Russian Alfa Bank and some owners are Russians against whom sanctions have been imposed. That is why the bank is on the sanctions lists of the United States and the United Kingdom. The software of the payment systems was locked, so that the bank could no longer make payments.
An additional problem was that ATB is a savings bank. Customers withdraw money by transferring it to a checking account at another bank. But some of those other (internationally operating) banks stopped making bookings because of the sanctions.
Special bankruptcy
According to the trustees, the bank first tried to find a buyer. That did not work; a potential buyer withdrew. On Friday afternoon, ATB therefore submitted a bankruptcy petition to the court with the support of regulator DNB.
“This is a special bankruptcy”, says curator Job van Hooff. “Normally a company goes bankrupt because they have no money, but this was because there were no operational resources left to make payments.”
According to DNB, ATB took measures prior to the bankruptcy to ensure that no money storms or other benefits would go to sanctioned Russians. With the bankruptcy, the deposit guarantee scheme came into effect.
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