FLASH
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The whole theft is camouflaged as a technical glitch that happened in the transition process when the two banks merged into one, Alpha with OTP.
Scandals with the banking system in Albania are not new. This time, a second-tier bank is plunged into scandal. It is about OTP Bank Albania, which is part of OTP Bank Nyrt of Hungary, which is represented by Tibor Kovacs. The latter has never come to Albania, but manages the Albanian "daughter" through a power of attorney left by Sonila Shkodran. OTP is also known as Putin's bank, because it is controlled by oligarchs close to Putin, part of the US blacklist.
The Bank of Albania fined "OTP Alnania" in June of this year. The fine decision was published in the Official Bulletin no. 26 of the BSH.
BSH "discovered" the scandalous theft committed by OTP Albania late and took "reassuring" measures, fining it with 8 million old lek and a warning to two Hungarian "employees" and did not touch the executive director of the bank, Bledar Shella.
The decision sheds light on a scandal that can only happen in Albania:
"The credit cards of the customers of the former Bank Alpha, after the change of the card processor and the absorption merger, turn out to have been opened in the form of overdraft with an opening date of August 2023 and with a debit balance consisting of commissions of several years of past, of which the client was not aware and were not reported as a liability by the former Alpha Bank. This includes closed credit cards, with status "5" in the Credit Register, as well as expired cards. These customers have been charged further additional (annual) commissions from the OTP Bank system".
So, OTP without notifying customers opened overdrafts to them, behaving as if they had signed loans. Then he turned them into debtors, since they did not regularly pay overdrafts! The whole theft is camouflaged as a technical glitch that happened in the transition process when the two banks merged into one, Alpha with OTP.
"The migration of data from the previous Flexcube and Delta systems to a single system was carried out based on incorrect mapping of some of the accounts. Consequently, their balances, in the new system, have not been allocated to the appropriate accounts".
The depth of the scandal can be seen through the lines of the decision.
"The lack (delay) of reconciling with the CKB (card processor) has resulted in significant values in the pending accounts in the bank's balance."
The scandal at OTP is of a serious level of infringement involving fraud and theft of customers whose number is unknown. OTP admits that it was not able to provide complete information on how the "suspended accounts" were formed that created a fraudulent balance for BSH and tax authorities. This also appears in the decision:
"The failure to correctly present the bank's financial condition in its financial statements constitutes a violation of the law."
What would happen to a company or business that would not present "correct" balance sheets to the tax authorities? Of course, he would not be fined 0.7 million ALL.
BSH has not implemented severe measures against the "administrators of the OTP", but imposed a fine and warning on two Hungarian "employees", without affecting the CEO Bledar Shella, who also holds the position of head of AAB (Albanian Association of Banks ).
The scandal with the OTP was not touched by any media, BSH remained silent and did not comment on it, as if this is a normality in the activity of banks. The number of defrauded customers does not come out. how many are
Even, hiding the "OTP" scandal, BSH tried to camouflage the situation after announcing to some media that it suspended the licenses of 2 microcredits 'Rrushkull One' and 'Perlat' this June. BSH lied because both 'Perlat' (NUIS K81826503V) and Rrushkull One (NUIS L91716507C) are savings and loan companies, and not microcredit institutions, like those that made and are making a name for themselves over the population.
Savings-loan companies grant loans with or without interest only to limited members who are members of the company, taking care of their correct return afterwards.
Before the 90s, under communism, this way of financing was called "lottary" and was used in certain groups of individuals who knew and trusted each other as well as the organizer of the lottery.
The Bank of Albania, with the OTP scandal, finally showed that it is an independent organization that neither supervises nor guarantees the deposits of Albanian citizens, but it has turned, after the microcredit scandal and the last one with the OTP, into a monster where the biggest abuse and corruption in the Albanian financial system is hidden.
The CEO of OTP, who is also the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the 11 second-level banks that have remained in the banking market, it is time to be placed under the magnifying glass of justice before the banks return to the same history as those of Micro Credit Albania, Final , Lendal or AGROKREDIT./ Backstage
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