The attacks were staged

Mr. Simeonov, people have started withdrawing their deposits from FIBank, is the situation alarming?

We are monitoring the process. Withdrawals are above the usual but not at an alarming level. I believe that in a day or two this will pass.

What advice did you give to FIBank in this situation?

Those who want to withdraw their money should be able to do so. We told them to plan well their cash availability because rumours have caused some damage. They have enough money.

No matter how many times we say that the bank is doing well, people will want to see it for themselves.

FIBank should notify the prosecution authorities because what is happening now can be qualified as libel and libel is a criminal offence. There are numerous facts indicating that this is a deliberate attack against the bank.

Who started this?

We don’t know. It might be dissatisfied business people whose loan applications were turned down by FIBank. Like most banks in Bulgaria, First Investment Bank restricted its lending activities taking into account the new market conditions and with a view to better liquidity management because in January they repaid BGN 400 mln. bond.

FIBank supposes that the rumours were started by a bank or banks whose good clients left them to go to FIBank attracted by FIBank’s high interests on deposits.

Probably the deposits which FIBank attracted in the past few months - approximately BGN 500 million - were held in other banks. There may have been some problems caused by the implementation of the new core banking system. These problems, however, are insignificant, hence the suspicion that the attacks have been deliberately launched. It seemed that the spreading of rumours was timed, there even specific dates - when the bank will go bankrupt, when receivers will enter the bank and so on. Complete nonsense. These have nothing to do with reality. The bank does not have bad loans or payment problems.