Union Bank goes out of business

The Principality of Liechtenstein has one less bank: the Union Bank has voluntarily decided on its liquidation. The institute says it can no longer meet the equity capital requirements after failing to find any shareholder who is welcome to the FMA financial market supervisory authority.

Shareholders made the decision to liquidate the bank during last Friday’s general meeting, a statement published on the Union Bank website reads. A liquidator will be appointed for the procedure. All client assets are guaranteed under the liquidity provisions in force. According to various media reports, the FMA was recently conducting an authorization withdrawal procedure against the Vaduz-based institution in relation to the suspicion of violation of the law on due diligence and the requirements regarding shareholder guarantees. and equity capital.

At the end of 2019, the media had inter alia linked the bank with business in Venezuela: money from the South American country would have been laundered through a network of companies and ended up in Vaduz. In addition to the supervisory authority of the financial markets, the public ministry was also investigating, it was then claimed.

But the owners of the institute have also repeatedly been talked about. Among the former large shareholders was a Ukrainian billionaire on whom an arrest warrant was pending in his country. The last owner, a German businessman of Iranian descent, was apparently not liked by the FMA. The media recently cited the Chinese billionaire owner of the cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance as a possible new main shareholder.

With the closure of the Union Bank in Liechtenstein, there now remains 13 banks with an FMA authorisation. A procedure against Bank Alpinum has been dismissed: the institute faced with money laundering charges reported yesterday that it had improved risk management and expanded compliance activities.