News

Banks to only act on official requests

Financial entities had not received Generalitat notification yesterday and admit situation is complicated

In the eye of the hurricane. That is how the financial entities that work with the Generalitat are feeling after the appearance yesterday by the Catalan government vice president, Oriol Junqueras, to announce the suspension of the state’s intervention of Catalan government finances and directly request cooperation from the banks, whom it would communicate with “by administrative and notarial” means. The notification has not yet arrived, however, and while political tensions reach their height, the financial entities are trying to stay out of trouble, while admitting the situation is a “complicated” one.

Choosing which legislation or mandate has more legitimacy or power is not their decision to make, sources of the sector point out.

The spokesperson of one bank yesterday referred to the amount of internal work that this decision is causing and explained that the entity had met in Madrid to study how the order published in the Official State Bulletin on Saturday regarding financial control of the Catalan government will affect the daily activity of the company. Among the conclusions of the meeting was the fact that the bank does not intend to do anything illegal and will only comply with requests that reach it via “official channels.”

On Monday, the banks received guidelines from Cristóbal Montoro’s Ministry of Finance to also control the expenses of senior Generalitat officials on their credit cards. The Catalan government yesterday insisted that this strayed from Community regulations and that the Spanish Ministry does not have the legal power to block the accounts of the Generalitat. Meanwhile, the financial institutions complain privately about being caught up in the middle of what is a political fight.

Sign in. Sign in if you are already a verified reader. I want to become verified reader. To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader.
Note: To leave comments on the website you must be a verified reader and accept the conditions of use.