The Liquidation Board announced that as of November 30 services will be provided in three banks to account holders with deposits and credit operations with the bank currently in liquidation.
From a statement issued by the Liquidating Board of Banco Continental:
The Liquidation Board of Banco Continental SA, under forced liquidation.
Reports:
For customers who have deposits and credit transactions with the bank in liquidation, whose financial services are now being normalised, the procedure for services is as follows:
It has been announced that the Guatemalan bank has acquired assets belonging to the Honduran group estimated at $108 million.
As part of the process of forced liquidation of Banco Continental, which began on October 12, the Bank founded in Guatemala acquired 32% of the assets, which has an estimated total value of $225 million.
Between December 2014 and September 2015 the average lending rate in private banks fell by 2.5%.
Data from the Central Bank of Honduras and the Honduran Association of Banking Institutions (Ahiba) indicates that up to October 2, 2015 the lending rate on loans in the national currency was 13.46%, 15.30% lower than last July, reports Elheraldo.hn.
The Commission for the Promotion of Public Private Partnerships in Honduras has four trusts with Banco Continental to implement various projects in infrastructure and energy.
Officials at the Commission for the Promotion of Public Private Partnerships (COALIANZA), reported that this institution has four trusts with Banco Continental, usded to implement various infrastructure and energy projects, but after the decision issued by the National Banking and Insurance Commission ( CNBS) to force liquidation of the financial institution, they are waiting for to CNBS determine the procedure to continue execution of the projects.
Assurance has been given that companies where Continental Group or its shareholders have a minority participation may continue to operate normally.
As outlined in an article on Televicentro.hn , the general coordinator of Government, Jorge Ramon Hernandez Alcerro, stated that "... 'there are over 40 companies' which have with less than 50 percent in shares of Continental Group, whose president is the banker and politician Jaime Rosenthal."
Diagram showing the people and companies identified by actions related to money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury´s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The US Treasury Department has advised that it will not sanction individuals or institutions participating in the liquidation provided that those transactions do not benefit any individual or entity other than those previously identified by the OFAC.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department of the United States has issued a statement regarding the decision of the Honduran authorities to liquidate Continental Bank, after identifying the institution and several of its executives as being involved in drug money laundering:
It has been announced that deposits up to $9,200 (L200,000) per person will be returned, and then payments to employees, depositors and others, noting that "... there are sufficient resources to address them all."
The cause is the inclusion of the institution in the list of the U.S Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the freezing of its assets abroad.
It has emerged that the operation may include the insurance company SISA, and that the transaction may be worth $180 million.
An article on Elmundo.sv reports that "... Almost a year after announcing its departure from the retail banking market in 11 countries, yesterday it emerged that Citigroup has finally reached an agreement to sell its operations in El Salvador.
Between 2011 and 2014 the number of people with bank accounts grew in all Central American countries, with noteworthy growth in El Salvador of 23%.
In Guatemala bankariztion grew by 19% in the period in question, reaching 9.2 million people with at least one bank account. In Honduras' growth was 11%, Costa Rica's 14%, Panama's 19%, and in Nicaragua, the increase was only 5%.
Atlantis Group is negotiating with Citigroup to acquire the insurer SISA and the consumer banking portfolio in El Salvador, where it will seek to operate a management and stock brokerage fund.
The group, from Honduras, has operated in El Salvador since it bought Citigroup's 75% stake in the pension fund manager AFP Confia. Now it aims to consolidate its participation in the Salvadoran financial market with a brokerage and investment fund management company.
The business group chaired by the Panamanian Stanley Motta may be interested in acquiring units of Citi's consumer banking operations in Panama and Costa Rica.
It is not yet been revealed which of Citibank' consumer banking companies in Panama and Costa Rica they may be interested in acquiring. However, potential stakeholders include the General Bank of Panama and Grupo ASSA, which in addition to being insurers, also runs La Hipotecaria.
The transaction involves the acquisition of all of Citi's operations in the country, including commercial loans, personal loans, deposits and credit cards.
From a statement issued by Ficohsa Group:
The company has been consolidated among the 10 largest financial groups in Central America
* The transaction involves the acquisition of all of Citi's operations in Nicaragua: commercial loans, personal loans, deposits and credit cards.
It has been reported that the Spanish firm Banco Popular has abandoned the negotiations for the purchase of Citigroup's consumer banking unit in the region.
Reports published by Bloomberg.com indicate that a purchase of consumer banking operations in the region would not be aligned to the strategic plan of the Spanish Banco Popular SA, who for weeks had been holding negotiations with Citigroup.
Citigroup could be soon finalizing the sale of its consumer banking operations in Central America with Bank of Spain, which could be paying $1.5 billion.
A report on Bloomberg.com noted that negotiations between the US bank and the Spanish bank are very advanced, and only the only thing left is to define the final value of the transaction, which could amount to $1.5 billion, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg.