The chairman of Northern Cyprus Banks Association(KKBB), Yunus Rahmioglu said yesterday that Turkish Cypriot banks will not accept unidentified bank transfers coming from South Cyprus.
“We expect a [monetary] flux from Greek Cyprus’s depositors through our banks. We will check the origin of the money to prevent money laundering, even if it is a bank transfer,” Rahmioglu said.
He stated that the KKBB has warned all North Cyprus banks to strictly investigate bank transfers from the other side of the island.
“However, the banks will not accept any cash of local or foreign depositors from Greek Cyprus, they would only accept bank transfer after a detailed check”, he said. “When deposits come via bank transfer, it is not ‘OK’ for us… Our duty is to ask its origin and how it was earned,” he added.
Rahmioglu noted that they needed to investigate the origin of the deposits coming from South Cyprus, stating that Russians had a considerable amount of deposits in the Greek Cypriot banking system.
North Cyprus should not open up to Russian deposits from South Cyprus without investigation, said Rahmioglu.
The European Union has not been tolerant of South Cyprus, Rahmioglu, said.
He said the EU aims to tax illicit money by loading a part of the burden on it. “We do not want this illicit money to come to the north. Because they are suspicious,” he said.
Rahmioglu underlined that if the depositors transfer their money to the north with the aim of money-laundering, Northern Cyprus would become: “a country that helps money-laundering”, adding that “North Cyprus, whose economy has always been transparent abroad, always fights illicit money.”
Nonetheless, he repeated that if bank transfers from South Cyprus proved not to be illicit, they could accept it.
