At Forbes, Tim Worstall explains why the mandatory levy on bank accounts is an epic facepalm:
There’s nothing particularly bad about making depositors carry some of the load of a bank failure. Indeed, it has something to recommend it: if it happens occasionally then people will take more care over where they put their money and what the banks do with it.
However, there’s a very great difference between allowing depositors without government insurance to take losses and actually reneging on the previously promised government insurance. And it’s that second that they’re actually doing here. [. . .]
Under the system until yesterday all depositors in Cypriot banks were insured up to the value of €100,000 with any one bank. Today that solemn and governmental promise has been shown to be false. And not even the European Union nor the European Central Bank are going to make them stick to it. Indeed, very much the other way around. The EU and ECB are insisting that the Cyprus authorities breach this deposit insurance provision.
As I say, there’s nothing wrong with making uninsured depositors take some of the pain. Certainly nothing at all wrong with making those with large deposits take a haircut. The problem is when government has said “we’ll insure this” and when push comes to shove they say “err, no, we won’t”. And the problem with this is that it makes all future EU deposit insurance worth that much less.
