Spanish Retail Broker Interdin Shaken by the US Patriot Act
The parent company of the broker was Banco de Madrid, which went belly up on Monday as U.S. authorities have
One of the big retail brokerages in Spain, Interdin has relinquished control of its business to the local financial regulator Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV). The clients of the firm have not been able to open new positions since the immediate aftermath of the takeover and had to close their OTC exposure within the trading day.
According to a statement made by a broker spokesperson to Spanish media, the company was not in a position to cover the deposits of its clients in the aftermath of the insolvency of its parent company Banco de Madrid.
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Banco de Madrid applied for bankruptcy protection after its parent Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA) has been deemed by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as “a primary money laundering concern” in accordance to the USA Patriot Act.
The resulting funding squeeze has resulted in a chain reaction which reached the retail broker Interdin.
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Administrators of Banco de Madrid, appointed by the national central bank Banco de España, decided to file for bankruptcy protection after limited access to capital left the relatively small regional bank isolated from financial markets and facing a run by depositors.
In accordance to the USA Patriot Act, a unit governed by the U.S. Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, is looking to identify money laundering violations across global financial institutions.
The unit accused BPA of of laundering money on behalf of Chinese and Russian organized crime groups and Venezuelan government officials.
The resulting run on the bank have put in trouble its Spanish subsidiary, which in turn has shaken the brokerage.
Clients of the broker have been informed in a statement that the release of their account balances will be processed further after instructions from the CNMV which is currently managing the firm.
It is striking that it takes a US juridiction for the spanish judiciaty to act, as if the latter could not see massiv frauds in the country they rule.
How did that actually happen that the US FinCEN were able to freeze those funds? Where the funds actually inside the US? or US-based bank?
So then I guess that bank wasn’t “Too Big To Fail” afterall, lol.
Our government is so corrupted that our regulator is looking another place all the time. Till Banco de Andorra was punished by US Regulator. In fact in Andorra they are trying to sustain the bank, and the massive fraud was there. However in Spain the unfortunate people that has money in Banco de Madrid cannot get the money now. I am an Interdin customer and I cannot have my money back. I am 51 years old and unemployed. There are almost 10000 people depositing money in Banco Madrid and Interdin in trouble these days. By the way Interdin was the… Read more »
Last Monday our regulator Bank of Spain didn’t allow Interdin to deposit the customers margin required in derivatives markets for our positions.
So we were forced to close them quickly, most of us resulting in a loss.
Besides retail customers money is in Banco Madrid and we will not be able to withdraw that money in months, perhaps in years.
http://www.rankia.com/foros/bolsa/temas/2710922-interdin-concurso-acreedores-banco-madrid