site.btaMenda Stoyanova: Corpbank Is Not a Bank, Central Bank Has No Job There

Menda Stoyanova: Corpbank Is Not a Bank, Central Bank Has No Job There

Sofia, March 13 (BTA) - The conservators that were appointed at
the failed Corpbank are managing something that is not a bank
and in the meantime the Corpbank assets have shrunk by 1 billion
leva, the head of the parliamentary finance committee, Menda
Stoyanova, told bTV Friday morning.

She recalled that an audit report set the amount of Corpbank
credits with good collateral at some 1.8-2 billion leva and said
that these have since contracted by 1 billion. "It means that
despite the legal restrictions, the Corpbank conservators have
allowed assignments and takeovers."

Stoyanova commented that it was the obligation of the central
bank to find a way during the period of special supervision to
help the bank recover and preserve its assets. "It failed in
both but a commission of inquiry is yet to prove this," she
said. "The banking supervision authorities have failed with
Corpbank and they may be failing in other cases we know nothing
about."

The head of the finance committee believes that the appointment
of a trustee in bankruptcy at Corpbank will stop the syphoning
of the bank and allow the creditors to litigate.

After a Sofia court on Thursday dismissed a motion by the
Bulgarian Deposit Insurance Fund to appoint a temporary trustee
in bankruptcy for Corpbank, all parties in Parliament agreed to
adopt revisions in the Bank Bankruptcy Act to make that possible
and stop the draining of the remaining Corpbank assets.

Menda Stoyanova said that central bank governor Ivan Iskrov has
a moral obligation to step down over the handling of the
Corpbank case. "It was during his term in office that we saw
happening what everybody was saying would never happen in
Bulgaria."

Stoyanova confirmed press reports that the acting central bank
vice governor and head of the banking supervision department,
Neli Kourdovska, withdrew a deposit of over 60,000 euro she had
with Corpbank hours before the bank shut down. Stoyanova
commented that she may have done it lawfully but she was
obviously able to save her money thanks to insider information.
"Many people at the central bank had inside information about
the goings-on at Tsvetan Vassilev's bank days before it was
placed under special supevision," she said.

Only three days before the appointment of conservators at
Corpbank, the central bank issued a statement saying that the
bank was liquid and functioning normally, and had high capital
adequacy.