November 2000. People queuing up. Jostled, pushed back and forth, ill-tempered. Appointments. Policemen and bodyguards. Gangs of rich gypsies, carrying knifes. And again appointments. Give our money back!
Is there any safety in this country? Where should I place my money, not to worry about it? What is the National Bank doing? Curses. Give our money back!
This is all about another bank that appears to have problems, about which everybody has found out. Many people have probably got used to this picture, after similar episodes, such as SAFI, Albina, Bankoop, International Religions Bank and the National Investments Fund. It is hard to be an investor or depositor these days!
Who is to blame for this situation? Good question, easy to answer. Who else than the deponents who rush in herds to ask for their money, trusting the rumours going around the market rather than official statements issued by responsible persons, who know what is going on and say there is nothing to worry about.
Depositors should not worry at all. They can even sleep peacefully, according to those responsible or to those who welcome at banks' doors.
Who else is to blame? The media. Always the media. Everything starts from here, the media always stirs up panic, instead of calming depositors down.
According to bankers, to the National Bank of Romania, to the people who have to honour their obligations, depositors and the media are at fault whenever a bank undergoes a crisis.
But this is never true!
Bankers say that no bank in the world, no matter how sound, can resist when panic bursts out and all depositors come to withdraw their money. This may be true, but something is deliberately left out all the time, the fact that nobody rushes to withdraw his or her money if everything is all right.
And bankers are fully aware of it. As the banks they are running are the first to worry when they feel that a certain bank is in trouble. They immediately start warning their own customers. Gradually, they cut down their credit lines, ask for guarantees or they simply break all ties with that bank.
This happens all the time. The banking market and NBR knew who was in trouble even before panic spread among depositors. Usually, until depositors get a chance to find out about their bank's situation, all the other banks have already started protecting themselves.
And when they come to ask for they money, being the last ones on the list, of course they are the ones to blame. Because they lack banking culture, they do not know how a bank works, as money is not available for depositors at any moment, it is placed in credits and cannot be retrieved overnight.
And so on and so forth. The depositors are the ones who do not understand how things work. This is what bankers say.
But bankers do not co-operate in order to avoid such situations. They do not talk about banks that have problems, about how credits are granted, about banking management, about what NBR does. Or maybe they do, but we are not aware of it.
However, we can see the queues and the fact that people are given their money back in tranches, based on previous appointments. Others, less fortunate, are not given anything.
No! Depositors should not be blamed for what happens to a bank. And neither should the media. In the absence of any suspicion, banks would never be in trouble.
And there are so many examples on the Romanian market. Depositors are the last ones to find out, because the others manage to protect themselves by that time. And the other banks are the first to do that.
Don't shoot at depositors!
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