Slovenia starts repaying savers of defunct LB bank
It amounts to EUR 685,000 for 39 Croatian savers. In total, Slovenia expects to repay EUR 385m to 230,000 Croatian and Bosnian LB savers.
The Succession Fund, which is in charge of the repayment scheme, received more than 15,000 applications from the savers of former LB branches in Zagreb and Sarajevo since 1 December. The savers will be able to file applications until the end of next year.
A fund representative told the STA that about a half of the applications came from Croatian savers. Meanwhile, the applications lodged by Bosnian savers will be examined only after the fund will be able to acquire a relevant database of the Sarajevo LB subsidiary.
The database is to be supplied by Bosnia-Herzegovina under a memorandum which the two governments are yet to sign. Slovenia has been unsuccessfully trying to get the data base for some time now.
Slovenia has drawn attention to the issue in a letter to the Council of Europe's committee of ministers' deputies in charge of human rights, as the scheme is based on the July 2014 ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and has been cleared by the Council of Europe.
Bosnia-Herzegovina also sent a letter to the body, which will convene on Tuesday, saying that the countries cannot agree on the wording for the memorandum.
Bosnia-Herzegovina also said in the letter that it had already forwarded data on foreign currency savers to Slovenia in July. However, Slovenia's Finance Ministry said that the database lacked vital identification data, such as passport numbers and birth dates.