Found this link to bank interest rates in Cyprus: http://cyprusbank.org.ua/index/0-8

Flying out to Paphos next month, getting really concerned and hope it's all been sorted out by the time we go. Don't fancy taking a lot of cash out with us, we have already paid the full amount for our holiday so fingers crossed.

Don't know where I would stand with the travel company if we were to change our package holiday at such short notice, this holiday cost enough as it is, we're celebrating our ruby anniversary and have never been to Cyprus before.

To be honest, we've always carried cash with us for our holidays - no matter where we've been in the past.

We just split it up and pop it into different envelopes and keep them separate from each other.

I'm here living in Cyprus and have been here for just over 9 years and the only thing that's different this last week is we can't really make our online bank transfers or purchases and we have to make sure we've always got cash with us....

I will try and keep you all up to date with what's happening but we will know much more by Tuesday after the decision on Monday.

Lady Jane

see my comments on the previous page

and dont worry

Yasus
wizard

Lady Jane wrote:

Flying out to Paphos next month, getting really concerned and hope it's all been sorted out by the time we go. Don't fancy taking a lot of cash out with us, we have already paid the full amount for our holiday so fingers crossed.

Don't know where I would stand with the travel company if we were to change our package holiday at such short notice, this holiday cost enough as it is, we're celebrating our ruby anniversary and have never been to Cyprus before. :(

Try not to worry. I can't believe the Cyprus government is going to be so pig headed that they will let their Country fall it was probably just 'posturing' last week, and all that - the Russians will save us. They gave a loan of 2.5 billion in 2011, and Cyprus have already asked for the terms of that to be extended. Russia isn't daft.

The EU is their only true hope, despite a lot of rubbish you read on ex-pat forums. That or getting the printing presses rolling again on the Cypriot Pound, but goodness knows what the exchange rate would be. Ok for holiday makers but a disaster for the Country.

I think as a holiday maker you will be fine I can't even see the FO changing their travel advice, it's not like there is terrorism, bombs etc or even 'the Arab Spring' its just a banking crisis. Seems like there is one most months in the EU
Also Shell is on the spot and giving solid unemotional advice.

I must admit I have struggled over the last week or so to understand why the E U seem to be so harsh in there attitude to Cyprus. At first I didn't understand that banks gave above average rates of interest to high deposits and some of this money was possibly from Russia...reading this post has entilightened me more!
Naturally I hope that today brings some better news to the Cypriots-although I asume whatever the outcome things will be bleak!
Would it stop me going-just give me the chance, ill health has restricted me of late!
Finally and very slightly rambling I remember a visit to the Amathus in Limasoll many years ago, I was sat in a quiet corner reading, a lady with two younger women sat near me and the younger two wandered off, we started to chat and it seemed she had brought her daughters to the hotel as one was due to hold her wedding reception there shortly, our chat was disturbed by two men who rudely demanded drinks from the waiter - suddenly sitting there didn't seem as pleasant, the lady muttered something in Greek to the waiter and we were shown to another table and brought a pot of coffee. Yes you have guessed they were Russian and from what I gathered the lady didn't care for them!
Cyprus has had many challenges over the years, I remember my Aunt and Uncle being flown home after the Turkish invasion with just the clothes on there backs, I am sure they will have the strength to get over this.

Jay

So, we have a bailout agreement!
But, it's really not good news for anyone who has more than €100,000 (approx £85,000) in either the Laiki (our 2nd largest bank) or Bank of Cyprus at the moment.

If you consider that some people may have sold a house in UK and may have transferred funds during the process of buying or having a property built in Cyprus - £85k could quite easily be an amount held in a bank account....

More than €100k is not insured and will go into the "bad" bank with possibly a loss of around 40% - we think this only affects Laiki and BOC customers but everything isn't quite clear as yet. Laiki will be wound down and monies for the "good" bank which will be BOC will be transferred is what we believe will happen.

At the moment, ATM withdrawals are restricted to just €100 per day at the Laiki bank (reported €120 at some other banks).

Still unsure if all banks will open tomorrow (Tuesday)....

Reports of a pipe bomb at BOC branch in Limassol was at Polemidia branch (a small village some 10km outside of Limassol town and tourist resort) have been confirmed.

Polemidia is the very next village to us and we never heard a thing...

Pipe bombs (home made explosive devices) can be a common occurrence in Cyprus (mainly in the outlying villages) and are used during petty squabbles. They're not generally meant to harm people and they tend to slip them under a car or at the doorway of another competitive business. They do damage to personal property rather than people.

If they had taken the offer last week instead of posturing as the Cypriot deputies are renowned for,the problems would have been solved on a more even basis [all contributing a bit] still hopefully now they have started lets hope they continue with the full agreement and privatise the SGO's and let Cy Airways go under
as they cant afford [and haven't been able to afford] all the mony thrown at it for the last few years

wiz

Wholeheartedly agree with CY airways Wizard.
No wonder the flights were always full, when you read that all employees and their families get unlimited free flights!

We need privatisation very quickly. A bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone...

I'm not sure about all airlines today but in the past one of the perks of working for an airline was the free travel available to employees and their families. Not just Air Cyprus.

When we sold MIL's bungalow a couple of years ago we placed the proceeds in 3 seperate bank accounts for her as we were aware that accounts over €100.000 were not insured. A bit too late for those in Cyprus who failed to do this but worth considering for anyone with a large bank account anywhere else.

When I worked at FC the staff and up to 5 other people travelling together got discounted flights on a last minute / late seats basis, otherwise you had to use your staff concession. We could only use them on charter flights and we could only use 67% of our discount towards the cost. We didn't get free flights in all my years of working with them.

For an ailing airline such as CY it would make much more sense to discount rather than offer free flights.

There's been talk for over 6 months about the ceiling limit of 100k covered by the EU insurance but there are always those who will gamble for an extra percent payout of leaving their money where it is instead of moving it around and playing safe. Similar to the Icelandic bank fiasco a few years ago. Friends of ours lost money there because they were getting an extra 1% by putting funds there than keeping it in a safer spot.

A lot comes down to greed and some of it comes down to ignorance of the legalities.

One guy in Cyprus was in the process of buying a house at the end of the other week before the crap hit the fan on Friday. His funds were due to be transferred for the sale out of his account but his solicitor told him the other side weren't quite ready so leave it till next week. He's lost 20k because his money was in the wrong place at the wrong time.... I'm sure he won't be the only one but I cannot see there will be any leeway for this kind of incident.

The good news is all banks except Laiki and Bank of Cyprus will open tomorrow.

The other two will open on Thursday, so we're informed.

Watch this space....

One guy in Cyprus was in the process of buying a house at the end of the other week before the "swear" hit the fan on Friday. His funds were due to be transferred for the sale out of his account but his solicitor told him the other side weren't quite ready so leave it till next week. He's lost 20k because his money was in the wrong place at the wrong time.... I'm sure he won't be the only one but I cannot see there will be any leeway for this kind of incident.

Now I do have sympathy for him, because it could have quite easily been me buying property in Spain, and using the local bank down the street to just transfer the funds.

€17bn is peanuts in the grand scheme of the EU, when you take into consideration that they dished out €100bn to Spain ( €41bn to the banks), plus Greece €110bn in 2010 and €130bn in 2012 - Portugal €78bn and Ireland €85bn.
Spain will be coming back for some more, because the country is sinking under high unemployment, lack of investment and wages down to levels they were 10 years ago- There are now 3 million people in Spain in severe poverty according to the Catholic charity 'Cáritas'.
So, why did the EU only put €10bn on the table and insist on Cyprus finding the shortfall?

I have several theories. I ain't saying any of them are right.
Lending €17bn to a small Mediterranean island (split in half) with (I think) about a million people, it would have meant the Cypriot's great, great, grandchildren would still be paying off the debt and €10bn was a more realist amount to manage? Everybody has a limit on what they can borrow and pay back.
Speculating on the yield of any future gas/oil revenue was not viable when there are others laying claim to it, and 20 miles away Israel has a field.

The EU is running out of money - Thatcher once said in defence of her capitalists agenda, "the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money".
All these countries with the Med Club credit card have borrowed far too much and spent far too much, some of it wasted on schemes that were never going to be profitable and corruption was rife.

It was to clean up the tax haven and the money laundering centre that Cyprus had become with a bloated banking sector, offering high interest rates and paying low taxes.
The EU had been negotiating with the previous government, who showed no interest to tackle this, and the new government had one month to sort it out before the money ran out.

Considering the EU guarantee of €100,000, or £85,000 - it was unbelievable that the Cypriot president would want to share the pain on everyone - maybe he wanted to keep his commie friends happy and assure them that they were not being singled out - or maybe he knows that they pay with lead or having his food tasted for the rest of his life?

I've read a lot of anti German rhetoric - I'm neither a supporter of capitalism or the EU/Euro, but Angie Merkel (whether she's up for election or not in September) she has to do what is best for the German taxpayer, and I don't think there would be many Germans with the appetite to bail out Russian mafiosa mobsters, who may have got rich by dealing in drugs, human trafficking, prostitution, child pornography and stealing - in fact, would anyone?

Not all the Russian money in Cypriot banks has come from ex-KGB mobsters or dodgy dealings, and it's a bit hypocritical when some of the Russian money in the Cypriot banks was used to buy Greek debt to support the EU, but the fact that the present Cypriot banking model was attracting such revenue from dubious sources, it was a good enough reason to crush the Cypriot banking sector.
Putin is not very happy, the Russians are good at playing chess - he may have the last laugh and twist the spigot on the gas supplies.

We all think (or did think) banks are as solid as a rock- These days banks are full of speculators taking risks using your money to lend to other banks and making investments to make themselves profit. Now we know it can go boobs up (Northern Rock or RBS anyone?) and just like any other business, you can lose money.
Surely if the bank is bankrupt, there is no money to steal, it's gone.?
The poo will hit the fan when France asks for a bail out and Cyprus was the template of the way things will be in the future.

I like to come out with the one liners......
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Sanji x

Further update on the banks:

No banks will open today (Tuesday) as announced yesterday.

ALL banks will remain closed until Thursday 28 March.

Hopefully there will soon be some semblance of banking normality for Cyprus now, I don't think it is going to affect tourists much, the people seem too placid can't see them rioting in a big time way or harming tourists. They seem to be cafe people (mass generalisation) who will no doubt talk about it a lot, not sure if the have the organisational ability to riot in the way some Country's have in the past few years.

While people were saying the Cypriot Govenment should be thinking about it's 1 million people .Merkel had to think of the 500 million people in the EU, 1 million pales into insignificance by comparison.

I think Latvia wants to enter the EU now, I don't know why they don't do some kind of due diligence test on Country's that want to join, to see if their Finances and their Financial systems are up to coping with the single currency - maybe they do ?

The EU seems to now be all about how big it can get without considering how robust it can be.

Opps

doe, they do a form of due diligence on a country's finances ...but it doesn't help if they lie as the Greeks did!!!

I thought they might do Dave, but as you say not much help if the home Country's government and finance ministers lie and cook the books though

Apologies for my complete lack of knowledge/understanding, but how with all this financial crisis affect tourism? Will prices in resorts, i.e - food prices, drinks, etc, go up because of it?

Cyprus has been in financial difficulties for the last 2 years or so, we were there in February, prices in the bars etc were not any more expensive than our last visit [about 21/2 yrs ago] as they are staying in the Euro zone there should not be any significant differences on local produce and EU products as the Euro is still a stable currency,

having said this you must also take account of Cypriot mentality, when trade drops the taverna owners put up prices to compensate for loss of profit as opposed to western Europeans who drop prices to get more business