I’ve had some money and assets at the freshly bankrupt Flowbank. Just curious how long would it take to get my assets back. For obvious reasons I have no access to my account.
https://www.srf.ch/news/wirtschaft/zu-wenig-eigenmittel-finma-schickt-genfer-flowbank-in-den-konkurs
https://old.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/comments/1dft3jy/how_long_does_usually_a_bank_liquidation_process/
Posted by Difficult-Heron
2 Comments
Base on past experience: Can be up to 14 years. [https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/finanzplatz-schweiz/liquidation-von-thuner-bank-abgeschlossen/4936868](https://www.swissinfo.ch/ger/finanzplatz-schweiz/liquidation-von-thuner-bank-abgeschlossen/4936868)
This is wat Finma says in their press release: [https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2024/06/20240613-mm-flowbank/](https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2024/06/20240613-mm-flowbank/)
>**Repayment of privileged deposits**
>FINMA’s primary aim is to protect depositors. In a first step the liquidator will therefore repay deposits up to CHF 100,000 (privileged deposits) to the clients concerned as quickly as possible. According to current calculations, the privileged deposits can be repaid in full out of the bank’s available funds. Therefore we do not expect the Swiss banks’ deposit insurance scheme (esisuisse) to be involved. Client custody accounts will also be segregated from the estate and repaid.Â
I.e. from what Finma can currently see, there are enough funds to repay the first 100k relatively quickly, and any stocks/bonds held in custody can be transferred. Of course, if big skeletons now fall out of the closet (eg, they didn’t actually buy your stocks/bonds, or they lent them out), this could complicate things and slow the process down.
If you had more than 100k, you’ll have to wait for the legal battles between the various creditors to get wound up, this can take a long while, or be relatively quickly. As a positive example, when MF Global (a pretty huge brokerage firm, with lots of retail customers) went down in 2011, deposit holders got 93% of their cash back after two years, and a few months later the remaining 7%.