Compensation paid to the first bankrupt Amsterdam Handelsbank savers, how does it work? †

The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) has started to repay 23,000 defrauded savers of the bankrupt Amsterdamse Handelsbank (ATB). After a few business days, applicants should be able to access their funds again. Up to 100,000 euros will be donated.

ATB went bankrupt last Friday. A very exceptional situation. The last bank to go bankrupt in the Netherlands was DSB Bank in 2009. Even then, account holders were compensated by other banks, but there was no bank pool yet. Since 2016, banks have been putting money aside in the event of a decline. How does this fund work and what happens if a bank is declared bankrupt?

Payment system locked

ATB is a subsidiary of the Russian bank Alfa, and some of its owners are sanctioned Russians. For this reason, the bank is on the US and UK sanctions lists. Payment system software was locked, so that the bank could no longer pay.

An additional problem was that ATB was a savings bank. Customers withdraw money by transferring them to a checking account at another bank. However, some of these other (internationally operating) banks have stopped making reservations because of the sanctions.

private bankruptcy

According to the trustees, the bank first tried to find a buyer. It did not work; A potential buyer was drawn. That is why ATB filed for bankruptcy with the court on Friday afternoon, with the support of the regulator DNB.

“This is a special bankruptcy”, says curator Job van Hooff. “Normally a company goes bankrupt because it has no money, but that is because there are no operational resources left to make the payments.”

According to DNB, ATB took measures before the bankruptcy to ensure that no money storms or other benefits went to sanctioned Russians. With the bankruptcy, the deposit guarantee program came into effect.