On 28 of March 2014 Cyprus Ministry of Finance has issued a new decree with validity of 35 days, providing a serious relaxation of the restrictive measures, agreed with the EU/IMF one year ago, following the “the overall stabilization and restoration of confidence in the banking system”, as announced in the relevant official press release.
It is specifically outlined that the Decree on International Banks remains unchanged.
The new relaxation measures are following:
- Abolition of the cash withdrawal limits for both natural and legal persons;
- Increase of the current monthly limits pertaining to money transfers within the Republic: for natural persons – from € 20.000 to € 50.000; for legal persons – from € 100.000 to € 200.000;
- It is allowed to open a new account for any person not being an existing customer of a credit institution, provided that the new account will be a fixed term deposit created with cash funds and the overall amount to be deposited exceeds €5.000. But such new fixed term deposit cannot be terminated prior to its maturity.
- The prohibition to terminate a fixed term deposit prior to its maturity date is cancelled.
In general, the Ministry of Finance has declared “the achievement of the milestones set out in the roadmap” which confirms that Cyprus banking sector effectively advances the process of reinforcement.
