Alta Banka Bitola Posts a 48.64 Million Denar Loss While Its Belgrade Owner Loses Its License: The State Guarantees 30,000 Euros per Saver, the Rest Is a Matter of Trust

The National Bank of Serbia has pulled the operating license of Alta Banka in Belgrade, and in Macedonia the question came up immediately: what does that mean for savers? The Belgrade bank owns Alta Banka AD Bitola, the former Stopanska Banka Bitola, which it took over a year ago.

The answer from the National Bank of Macedonia is carefully worded. The decision concerns operations in Serbia and "does not in itself mean the automatic withdrawal of the operating license" of the Bitola bank. The local bank is a separate legal entity, and the central bank, as supervisor, "is monitoring the situation." Legally, all of that holds up. But "is monitoring" doesn't tell you what it sees.

The figures the bank published for the first nine months are more concrete. A net loss of 48.64 million denars, against a profit of 49.15 million denars for the same nine months last year. Net interest income fell 8.07 percent, to 252 million denars. Net fee and commission income fell 29.07 percent, to 34.93 million denars, which is 75.65 percent below plan. Meanwhile, staff costs rose 32.57 percent, to 176.26 million denars, which the bank puts down to a strategy of growth and development.

So the bank was losing money well before the decision in Belgrade. Commissions are falling, staff costs are rising, and neither Vučić nor the opposition did that. It's no reason to panic, but it's also not a picture you calm down with one press release.

There's another side to the balance sheet. Customer deposits stand at 8.91 billion denars, up 5.4 percent on last year. Total assets are 11.27 billion denars, and capital and reserves 1.98 billion denars. The bank insists it is liquid and that customers have uninterrupted access to their money. Economic expert Pavle Gacov points out that the bank's assets exceed its liabilities by more than 30 million euros, and warns that breaking a term deposit early could cost you the agreed interest.

Gacov, the man calming savers down, is also asking the state for two things: for the governor to speak publicly, and for stepped-up supervision of the bank. When even the person urging calm says supervision needs tightening, the question is no longer who's spreading fear. The question is who will explain to savers what exactly the National Bank is seeing.

The legal limit is clear. The Deposit Insurance Fund pays out up to 30,000 euros in denar equivalent per saver per bank, regardless of the number of accounts. Anything above that has to be claimed through bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings, with no guarantee of getting it back. Whether things will get that far, nobody has any proof for now. But when a loss, an owner without a license and a 30,000-euro limit all land in one sentence, savers are entitled to more than one press release.