Brussels, 24/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 May, the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee adopted a draft report by Peter Simon (S&D, Germany) on the updating of EU legislation covering national savings guarantee systems (see EUROPE 10173 and 10169), recommending such systems be funded in advance of any crisis to the tune of 1.5% of the savings covered by the scheme within 15 years and a speeding up of the time it takes to reimburse savers if the bank or building society goes bankrupt. Since 1 January 2011, the savings guarantee system in Europe covers savings of up to €100,000.
Before the committee voted on his report on Tuesday, Peter Simon said the EP wanted all savers in Europe to have the same protection and the same stability for savings guarantee systems, while leaving member states room for manoeuvre and avoiding unfair competition among banks and among national guarantee systems. He explained that the aspects of his report, which he said would be backed by a comfortable majority, were funding savings guarantee systems in advance of any crisis to the amount of 1.5% of the savings covered by the fund rather than returnable deposits, as suggested by the European Commission (the member states are reportedly recommending 1% or even 0.5%) within 15 years (the Commission suggests 10 years). Simon said that after discussions with the banks, it was clear that 15 years was do-able.
If a bank goes under, savers would receive an initial reimbursement of 5,000 within five working days. The time allowed for payment of the full compensation amount would be 20 days until 2017, to give banks time to prepare the technology to get an overview of all protected savings. The rapporteur said that the UK had shown that this was feasible. National savings guarantee systems would be allowed to act to stop banks going under. Speaking on behalf of the Greens/EFA, Germany's Sven Giegold was delighted that MEPs had suggested banks should contribute to guarantee systems in line with the scale of risk that they run, although this measure would need to be put into practice by the member states. (M.B./transl.fl)