An agency tasked with compensating for bank deposits of individuals will be set up in Belarus in line with the bill “Guaranteed compensation for bank deposits of natural persons” the House of Representatives of the National Assembly passed in the second reading.
The bill determines legal foundation for providing compensations when the bank cannot fulfil its obligations to depositors independently.
BelTA learnt from Ivan Mychko, Deputy Chairman of the Monetary Policy and Banking Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly, the agency is a non-commercial state institution to be set up by the Council of Ministers and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB). The agency will be dedicated to accumulating mandatory deposits of banks and other funds as well as to paying out monetary compensations for individual’s deposits.
The agency will dispose the mandatory deposits of banks, money they have transferred to the NBRB individuals deposit protection fund. The agency’s property will be made up of the reserve, initial contributions of the Council of Ministers and the National Bank as well as other legal sources.
The agency may cover its money limitations by taking out loans, including loans issued against NBRB guarantees, and using money of the national state budget. To ensure the preservation of the reserve, the money can be stored only as deposits of the National Bank, public securities of the Republic of Belarus and securities of the National Bank.
The agency will be governed by a Supervisory Board and a Director General. The Board is made up of three representatives of the Council of Ministers and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (three representatives from each side).
According to Ivan Mychko, the bill offers protection of up to ?5,000 of saver’s money per bank. If the saver has several deposits in one bank, the compensation may not exceed an equivalent of ?5,000. At the present development stage of the Belarusian economy the sum is the optimal limit for the government’s social responsibility for saver’s money.
Compensations will be paid out within one month since a relevant application has been filed with the agency. While the agency does its job, the saver can still apply for the bank for the return of the rest of the deposit.
Ivan Mychko believes, the bill is designed to protect legal interests of citizens and to encourage individual’s savings and growing trust in the Belarusian banking system.
