WILLEMSTAD - A deal with the new Curaçao General Pension Fund Bank (APC Bank) about the acquisition of a large part of the troubled Giro Bank has been revoked. Depositors still do not have access to their money at the Giro Bank.
Everything indicates that the Netherlands links a loan to solve the Giro Bank issue to the approval of the government of Curaçao to the conditions attached to the third tranche of liquidity support, being the Caribbean Reform Entity Act (CHE).
According to the so-called Starting Points Document, drawn up after the negotiations in February this year, APC would pay 182 million guilders for Giro's loan portfolio (70 percent of the nominal value as at January 31, 2020). Depositors who have been duped so far would thus regain access to most of their assets.
In the opinion of the Central Bank CBCS, this was in the interest of the joint creditors, including APC, and would above all help prevent further loss of confidence and unrest.
The problem now is that APC believes that partly due to the Covid-19 crisis, the value of Giro has dropped significantly; in mid-July, the pension fund announced that it wanted to pay a maximum of 66.6 million (40 percent of the adjusted nominal value of 166 million). Due to the much lower offer, the government should contribute much more to the solution of the Giro Bank issue.
On this basis, both the government and the CBCS have announced that they will "immediately" stop the negotiations with APC. The Central Bank said it was "studying other options."