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The Raiffeisen banking group abandons the deposit insurance, which takes over after bank failures in Austria for the savings deposits of affected customers. Raiffeisen now wants to increase his own security, reports the “Presse” (Thursday). The Volksbanks would like to do the same with Raiffeisen, but as things stand so far, they are probably too small for that. The reason is the costly bankruptcy of the Mattersburg commercial bank.
Just weeks after Comerzialbank collapsed last year, Raiffeisen’s biggest players decided to pull out of the Austria Joint Deposit Insurance Scheme (ESA).
“Mattersburg” cost the Raiffeisen sector around € 220 million, out of the total € 490 million that ESA Commerzialbank customers compensated. Raiffeisen did not want to pay for external savers again and, at the end of 2020, requested its own deposit protection from the responsible authorities.
“We have submitted the requests to the supervisory authorities, up to the ECB. Now we are only waiting for positive decisions,” quoted the “press” Martin Schaller, director of Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark.
He assumes the first notices will come in May, maybe April. If supervisors have no objection, the Raiffeisen sector will be responsible for the roughly € 88 billion of customer deposits.
Within one year, contributions paid to the ESA fund can be transferred to a new deposit guarantee. If Raiffeisen managed to install its own security system before the end of the year, the sector would receive around 135 million euros, according to the report.
No liability for other banks
Much more important is that one does not have to be responsible for other institutes in the future. Currently, Raiffeisen had to pay not only for the Commerzialbank, but also for the insolvent former Meinl-Bank (Anglo Austrian Bank).
Bank failures within Raiffeisen are almost impossible in Austria, as the approximately 375 Raiffeisen banks form a liability association and have a joint audit association. Should an imbalance ever occur in the sector, the affected bank would be absorbed by the other banks in the sector. Raiffeisen pays ESA a security plan that pays up to 100,000 euros per saver in the event of bank failure, but which it will never use: “You will never find a Raiffeisen bank that has failed because the sector for the Raiffeisen name remains. But we are reluctant to defend others, “says Schaller.
