IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/erc/cypepr/v8y2014i2p3-35.html

The Collapse of the Cypriot Banking System: A Bird’s Eye View

Author

Listed:
  • Sofronis Clerides

    (Department of Economics and Economics Research Centre, University of Cyprus)

Abstract

The depositor bail-in of March 2013 was an unprecedented event that shocked Cyprus and reverberated around the world. Up until 2000, Cyprus ran a closed and tightly controlled financial system and its banks were conservative, inward-looking institutions. The turn of the century brought the liberalization of the financial system, EU entry and adoption of the euro. These watershed events drastically altered the environment. Banks, supervisors and the political system did not handle this transition well, setting the stage for a major crisis. Government inability to act decisively when problems first appeared gave the crisis catastrophic proportions.

Suggested Citation

  • Sofronis Clerides, 2014. "The Collapse of the Cypriot Banking System: A Bird’s Eye View," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 8(2), pages 3-35, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:erc:cypepr:v:8:y:2014:i:2:p:3-35
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ucy.ac.cy/erc/documents/Clerides_3-35.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Guinnane, Timothy W., 2003. "Erratum to "The economics of lending with joint liability: theory and practice" [J. Devel. Econ. 60 (1999) 195-228," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 261-262, February.
    2. International Monetary Fund, 2014. "Cyprus: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2014/314, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Douglas, George W & Miller, James C, III, 1974. "Quality Competition, Industry Equilibrium, and Efficiency in the Price-Constrained Airline Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(4), pages 657-669, September.
    4. Whelan, Karl, 2014. "Ireland’s Economic Crisis: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 424-440.
    5. Antreas D. Athanassopoulos & Andreas Soteriou & Stavros Zenios, 1997. "Disentangling Within- and Between-Country Efficiency Differences of Bank Branches," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 97-17, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    6. Christopher R. Knittel & Victor Stango, 2003. "Price Ceilings as Focal Points for Tacit Collusion: Evidence from Credit Cards," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1703-1729, December.
    7. International Monetary Fund, 2011. "Chile: Staff Report for the 2011 Article IV Consultation," IMF Staff Country Reports 2011/260, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Constantinos Stephanou, 2011. "The Banking System in Cyprus:Time to Rethink the Business Model?," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 5(2), pages 123-130, December.
    9. repec:rnp:ecopol:09111 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Stavros A. Zenios, 2013. "The Cyprus Debt: Perfect Crisis and a Way Forward," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 7(1), pages 3-45, June.
    11. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Preface," MPRA Paper 17451, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    13. Christos S. Savva, 2007. "The Efficiency of Cypriot Commercial Banks: A Comparison with Greece and the UK," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 1(2), pages 17-35, December.
    14. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    15. Reinhart, Carmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "This Time It’s Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly-Chapter 1," MPRA Paper 17452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Kate Phylaktis, 1995. "The Banking System of Cyprus," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-12868-6, October.
    17. International Monetary Fund, 2011. "Dominica: Staff Report for the 2011 Article IV consultation," IMF Staff Country Reports 2011/324, International Monetary Fund.
    18. International Monetary Fund, 2010. "Cyprus: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2010/289, International Monetary Fund.
    19. International Monetary Fund, 2011. "Bangladesh: Staff Report for the 2011 Article IV Consultation," IMF Staff Country Reports 2011/314, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Constantinos Stephanou, 2011. "Big Banks In Small Countries:The Case of Cyprus," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 5(1), pages 3-21, June.
    21. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 445-502.
    22. Zenios, Stavros A., 2014. "Fairness and Reflexivity in the Cyprus Bail-In," Working Papers 14-04, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    23. Balázs Égert & Rafaƚ Kierzenkowski, 2014. "Exports and Property Prices in France: Are They Connected?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 387-409, March.
    24. Lawrence J. White, 1972. "Quality Variation When Prices Are Regulated," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 3(2), pages 425-436, Autumn.
    25. Boot, Arnoud W. A., 2000. "Relationship Banking: What Do We Know?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 7-25, January.
    26. Panicos O. Demetriades, 1999. "Financial Liberalisation Choices for Cyprus on the Road to the European Union," Ekonomia, Cyprus Economic Society and University of Cyprus, vol. 3(1), pages 14-40, summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nick O'Donovan, 2021. "One‐off wealth taxes: theory and evidence," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3-4), pages 565-597, September.
    2. Gikas A. Hardouvelis & Ioannis Gkionis, 2016. "A Decade Long Economic Crisis: Cyprus versus Greece," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 10(2), pages 3-40, December.
    3. Panayiotis C. Andreou & Dennis Philip, 2018. "Financial knowledge among university students and implications for personal debt and fraudulent investments," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 12(2), pages 3-23, December.
    4. Elias Giannakis & Theofanis P. Mamuneas, 2018. "Sectoral linkages and economic crisis: An input-output analysis of the Cypriot economy," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 12(1), pages 28-40, June.
    5. Panayiotis C. Andreou & Sofia Anyfantaki, 2019. "Financial literacy and its influence on consumers’ internet banking behaviour," Working Papers 275, Bank of Greece.
    6. Christos Koutsampelas, 2016. "The Cypriot GMI scheme and comparisons with other European countries," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 10(1), pages 3-26, June.
    7. Konstantinos Nikolopoulos & Konstantia Litsiou, 2019. "When the bank is closed, the cash is king; ... not!," Working Papers 19008, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    8. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Anyfantaki, Sofia, 2021. "Financial literacy and its influence on internet banking behavior," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 658-674.
    9. Tamon Asonuma & Michael G. Papaioannou & Takahiro Tsuda, 2021. "Banking Crisis, Sovereign Debt Restructurings, and Financial Stability Policies in Cyprus During 2012–13," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 25(3-4), pages 163-186, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thanh C. Nguyen & Vítor Castro & Justine Wood, 2022. "Political environment and financial crises," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 417-438, January.
    2. Chung‐Hua Shen & Hsing‐Hua Hsu, 2022. "The determinants of Asian banking crises—Application of the panel threshold logit model," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 248-277, March.
    3. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Eguren Martin, Fernando & Thwaites, Gregory, 2019. "Foreign booms, domestic busts: The global dimension of banking crises," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 58-74.
    4. Beutel, Johannes & List, Sophia & von Schweinitz, Gregor, 2018. "An evaluation of early warning models for systemic banking crises: Does machine learning improve predictions?," Discussion Papers 48/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. Emile du Plessis & Ulrich Fritsche, 2025. "New forecasting methods for an old problem: Predicting 147 years of systemic financial crises," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 3-40, January.
    6. Carmen M. Reinhart, 2015. "The Antecedents and Aftermath of Financial Crises as Told by Carlos F. Díaz-Alejandro," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2015), pages 187-217.
    7. Rho, Caterina & Saenz, Manrique, 2021. "Financial stress and the probability of sovereign default," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    8. Mathias Drehmann & Mikael Juselius & Sarah Quincy, 2024. "Aggregate Debt Servicing and the Limit on Private Credit," NBER Working Papers 33306, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dieckelmann, Daniel, 2020. "Cross-border lending and the international transmission of banking crises," Discussion Papers 2020/13, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    10. Joshua Aizenman & Hiro Ito, 2014. "The More Divergent, the Better? Lessons on Trilemma Policies and Crises for Asia," Asian Development Review, MIT Press, vol. 31(2), pages 21-54, September.
    11. Nabila Boukef Jlassi & Helmi Hamdi & Joseph P. Joyce, 2018. "External liabilities, domestic institutions and banking crises in developing economies," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 96-116, February.
    12. Lars Ahnland, 2015. "Private debt in Sweden in 1900-2013 and the risk of financial crisis," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(3), pages 302-323, November.
    13. Claudio Borio, 2011. "Rediscovering the Macroeconomic Roots of Financial Stability Policy: Journey, Challenges, and a Way Forward," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 87-117, December.
    14. Andrada-Félix, Julián & Fernández-Rodríguez, Fernando & Sosvilla-Rivero, Simón, 2012. "Historical financial analogies of the current crisis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 190-192.
    15. Agarwal, Isha & Baron, Matthew, 2024. "Inflation and Disintermediation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    16. Koh,Wee Chian & Kose,Ayhan & Nagle,Peter Stephen Oliver & Ohnsorge,Franziska Lieselotte & Sugawara,Naotaka, 2020. "Debt and Financial Crises," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9116, The World Bank.
    17. Dungey, M. & Jacobs, J.P.A.M. & Lestano, L., 2010. "The internationalisation of financial crises," Research Report 10002, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    18. Jean-Pierre Andre, 2011. "Economic Imbalances: New Zealand's Structural Challenge," Treasury Working Paper Series 11/03, New Zealand Treasury.
    19. Rakesh Padhan & K. P. Prabheesh, 2019. "Effectiveness Of Early Warning Models: A Critical Review And New Agenda For Future Direction," Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking, Bank Indonesia, vol. 22(4), pages 457-484, December.
    20. Davis, J. Scott & Mack, Adrienne & Phoa, Wesley & Vandenabeele, Anne, 2016. "Credit booms, banking crises, and the current account," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 360-377.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erc:cypepr:v:8:y:2014:i:2:p:3-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vasiliki Bozani (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erucycy.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.