AREB was never able to give guarantees and peace of mind to the savers

Although the State Agency for the Resolution of Banking Institutions (AREB), an organism created to manage the BPA’s crisis when Andorra intervened the entity in March 2015, more than a year ago approved the transfer of the bank’s assets that were out of suspicion to Vall Banc, which was sold to the US vulture fund JC Flowers. Suspiciously the savings of thousands of clients are still lost in the limbo due to the incapacity of the executives of the new financial institution and the bureaucracy of the Andorran government.

In spite the fact that since May 2016 the transfer of about 28,000 customers was made, of the 29,200 that the bank had, about a thousand accounts were frozen, and although their relationship with the money-laundering issue has been clarified, there are still “collateral victims” who have been trapped for more than two years. First with BPA and now with Vall Banc.

With all these irregularities, the fear of the Andorran authority that customers might flee from Vall Banc as soon as it opens its doors led them to arbitrarily implement mechanisms to prevent a massive flight of customers from occurring.

It is important to remember that César Goyache, CEO of the AREB, promised at the time that customers would recover their money “gradually over a period of six months”. The truth is that there are still thousands who are subjected to monthly maturities, that is, they have kept their savings blocked for an excessively long period. And this prolonged time has not even served to guarantee the viability of Vall Banc, which since its creation has suffered liquidity problems due to its bad administrative approach from the beginning.

The AREB has never been able to provide guarantees nor peace of mind to the savers – who continue struggling to recover their capital through a platform for affected customers due to the questionable solvency of the new bank, even though Crèdit Andorrà, Andbank, MoraBanc and Banc Sabadell, the other four entities in the country, have contributed 27 million euros in addition to the three that had been deposited for the constitution of Vall Banc, to reach the 30 million minimum capital required in Andorra to operate.

The Government of Andorra, through the AREB, always prosecuted the management of the transfer of accounts to Vall Banc. Part of the 2 thousand 200 clients trapped in the second “corralito” that starred the intervened entity, continue with the impunity of the process in the courts of the country, because at all times the legal principles of all kinds were violated, and the management was more similar to a “witch hunt” than to an orderly liquidation of a society.

The Andorran government hit even, damaging the assets of both companies and individuals, including the accounts that some of the clients’ children had opened, in which they settled the university expenses, an infamous act. Of the 2,200 affected, there are 1,300 who were left without their savings because they allegedly failed to prove the origin of their deposits. Their problem is that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) had requested supporting documents from transactions done 20 years ago when Spain was not required documentation beyond the last five years. What aggravated the matter was that BPA’s managers, instead of sending certified letters to notify clients, used ordinary mail without respecting the right to privacy.

Others who have found themselves in the same situation are Andorran merchants who operated mainly in cash, which is common in the Principality, although the auditor considered it strange as well because it favored money laundering. And although they have shown that they never committed a financial crime, many of those affected preferred to adopt a low profile and not to raise their voices for fear of becoming part of a blacklist that prevents them from recovering their savings and ultimately losing their assets forever.