European authorities have saidLatvian bank PNB Banka will be shut down after determining that nothing couldprevent it from failing, reports BSS/AFP.
PNB Banka, the sixth largest Latvian bank with 550 million euros ($610million) in assets, “was failing or likely to fail” according to a statementby the European Central Bank (ECB) late on Thursday.
The bank has been directly supervised by the ECB since May, and centralbank officials decided its amount of available capital had deteriorated “tothe point that the bank’s assets were less than its liabilities”. The ECB then informed Europe’s Single Resolution Board, which in turndetermined “that resolution action is not necessary,” and PNB Banka should beliquidated, an SRB statement said. “The Latvian bank will be wound up under national law,” SRB added.
The SRB was created in 2016 to deal with failing eurozone banks byspreading the cost of dismantling them across the zone’s entire bankingsector. Several ailing eurozone banks have thus disappeared, including the sixthbiggest Spanish bank, Banco Poular, which was acquired in 2017 by rivalSantander.
In Italy, two Venetian banks, Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca,were saved by the government at a cost of billions of euros billed totaxpayers.
