imagine you are a bank. not any bank but the bank managing all your little country’s monetary transfers. imagine that after – let’s call it a little crisis in your owner’s organization – a big investment fonds takes over. not just any investment fonts but one of the largest in the world. an investment fonds from not just any country but the united states. and suddenly things start changing in that little bank. suddenly us laws are applied to the customers in that little bank far far away from the yet-to-be-secured-homeland. examples? no cubans or cuban-borns are allowed to keep their accounts for example.
can’t happen? it just did. only a couple of weeks after the investment fonds Cerberus Capital took over the Austrian bank Bawag Cerberus issued orders to comply with US regulations considering business with Cubans. The Bawag followed suit, telling customers concerned in a more or less friendly way that their accounts are about to be closed down. Among them people who have lived in Austria for years. In addition the Bawag appearantly was instructed to keep a close eye on customers doing business in Iran as well.
To my surprise, the uproar throughout the country was considerable. Austrians slowly start to understand, that sooner or later it could be anyone that doesn’t fit to the ethnical, business or political standards of a foreign investor. The government is considering withdrawing all its accounts from the Bawag bank. The only right thing to do if you ask me.
The other Austrian banks did the only right thing. They welcomed those expelled customers with arms wide open. In Spanish.
I believe.
if the us and others wouldnt boycott cuba and northkorea there would be much more support for this communist and socialist regimes, which oppress and terrorise their people.
cubans livin in europe should support any efforts to bring freedom to these countries.
Unfortunately you are totally missing my point. This is not about Cuba or North Korea. This is about an american investment company reaching out to tell an Austrian bank whom to have as a customer and whom not. And by the way: Mr. Castro probably couldn’t care less about normal people like you and me being unable to open an account in an Austrian bank.
By the way: You’d like to take a close look on countries like Afghanistan and Iraq to see american policy on the road to nowhere…