Action of depositors of Royalbank

Several dozen depositors of the former commercial bank Royalbank held April 22 in front of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) an action demanding the return of their deposits.

Royalbank was eliminated by CBA two years ago. Then the deposits were returned, subject to safeguards of the Deposit Insurance Fund.

Return of other contributions was requested by the liquidation commission specially created by CBA - Azerbaijan International Consulting Company.

However, according to investors, the Commission delays the return of the deposits, paying the citizens per year just 2-5% of the total amount.

The investors are dissatisfied with the liquidation structure and believe that Royal Bank up to the license revocation was very successful and allowed its assets to fully refund all the deposits.

"Let the Central Bank, which closed the bank, return our money," said one of the bank's depositors, a famous singer, a native of South Azerbaijan, Yaqub Zurufchu .

The number of those who have not been returned their contributions is 471 people and the amount of money due to them is 40 million manat .

Among the investors there are cancer patients who sold their real estate and invested the money in the bank to pay the interest costs of their chemotherapy.

The investors believe they were victims of fraud of unscrupulous officials.

Participants of the rally demanded a meeting with the head of the Central Bank Elman Rustamov. However, a representative of the CBA said Rustamov was away and can receive them only on Friday.

This caused outrage of the protesters who, despite the presence of judgments, for two years cannot get their money.

The people refused to disperse. Police arrived, which, however, did not interfere.

Later, the protesters were called from CBA and said Rustamov would receive their representatives on Thursday.

Nevertheless, on April 23 at 11.00, the protesters intend to go and complain to the presidential administration.

* Royalbank acted in the banking market since 1993. Major shareholder (44.5% equity) was a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin Ali Jam. In July 2012, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan in connection with non-compliance of Royalbank with «requirements to a minimum level of the aggregate capital adequacy and non-performance of its obligations to creditors," as well as the failure of written instructions of the Central Bank, revoked its license. Revocation of the license of Royalbank was preceded by a series of scandals. In particular, in an open network the project Wikileaks released secret correspondence from former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Derse. She shared suspicions of Iranian money laundering by several Azerbaijani banks, including Royalbank. – 06B-