Is the Investment and Development Bank of the RS a salvation for individuals and companies close to Milorad Dodik, whose names are on the American blacklist, or is the set of laws adopted by the National Assembly driving this public company to ruin? Although the goal of such a move is clear, the authorities in the RS claim that the RBI cannot fail.
On the other hand, the thesis of those who introduce sanctions is completely opposite. Public institutions are not amnestied from sanctions.
Even earlier, Milorad Dodik announced the establishment of a RS bank as a response to American sanctions. Now the government has decided to transform the RBI, by enabling this bank to carry out payment transactions, risking that institution being on the sanctioned list. Regardless of the warnings of the American Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina that no institution has been spared the sanctions, the authorities of the RS assure that the IRB will not be blacklisted.
“I have to tell the citizens of the RS to have confidence and that what is being said that the RBI will fail, that it will be subject to sanctions, is absolutely not true, just as the RS has not gone bankrupt,” said Zora Vidović, Minister of Finance of the RS.
“In the process of obtaining permits and licenses from the Agency for Deposits and the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will be forced to sign documents guaranteeing the OFAC list. IRB will not be able to open an account with any legal entity that is on the OFAC list, nor with any natural person. From that side, we don’t have a problem that the IRB will be hit by any sanctions”, claims Dražen Vrhovac, deputy director of the RBI RS.
This is the beginning of the end of the RBI, warns the opposition in the RS. The government, they say, sacrifices the most important institutions in order to protect individuals.
“It would be better if you called this law the Law on Prointer or the Law on the first family of the RS, that their interests are protected and that you are ready to sacrifice the most important financial institutions of the RS.” You are behaving like geese in the fog, what you are doing is unacceptable,” said Nebojša Vukanović, MP of the List for Justice and Order in NSRS.
“Since you say that there will be no harm, if the IRB falls, will all young people who have loans from the IRB have to pay them back immediately,” asked Igor Crnadak, head of the Club of PDP deputies in the NSRS.
Crnadak was denied the authorities’ answer to this question, but experts in this field have it. If there is a liquidation of the IRB, all credit claims would be due immediately, explains Siniša Vukelic, editor of the Capital.ba portal.
“That would be a big blow to the economy, because the RBI has placed more than three billion marks in loans since its establishment. “The risk is not only that the IRB will come under sanctions, but also some microcredit organizations, because the authorities of the RS have foreseen that microcredit organizations can also carry out payment transactions, which some interpret as a circumvention of American sanctions,” adds Vukelić.
The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina says they have no information about the transformation of the RBI in the RS. They note that licensing for the performance of payment operations is carried out by entity banking agencies.
“An authorized organization, licensed to carry out payment operations, can apply for participation in the payment systems of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a note that for official participation in the payment systems of the central bank, it is necessary to fulfill all the conditions prescribed in the Operational Rules of the payment systems of this bank,” the Central Bank Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina explains.
While the authorities in the RS assure that there is no cause for concern, the US Embassy says that sanctions can be applied to any institution, including banks in the private and public sector, that provide any type of support to individuals and companies on OFAC’s list, Federalna writes.
Photo©️ Federalna
