NICOSIA, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Bank of Cyprus is operating normally after completing the takeover of a lender shut down by international lenders, a bank official told Xinhua on Tuesday.
Bank of Cyprus reopened Tuesday following a three-day holiday after 1.1 million accounts of now defunct Cyprus Popular Bank, known as Laiki, were integrated into its electronic system.
"The operation went smoothly and we finished several hours ahead of schedule on Monday afternoon. We had allowed for a safety period of several hours but we met with no hitches," said Haris Poincare, chief of retail banking who's responsible for customer services in the bank.
He said that all bank offices island-wide were operating normally with no problems whatsoever.
Bank of Cyprus was made to take on the assets of Laiki when Eurogroup and the International Monetary Fund ordered Laiki's winding down as part of a 10-billion-euro (13.5 billion U.S. dollars) bailout in March 2013.
Former Laiki creditors own 18 percent of Bank of Cyprus stock.
Laiki had become heavily indebted to the European Central Bank after drawing over 9 billion euros -- about two-thirds of Cyprus' GDP -- in Emergency Liquidity Assistance even after the government had injected 1.8 billion euros in an emergency recapitalization operation in July 2012.
Investigators are probing allegations that large sums were funneled into unsecured or poorly secured loans to Greek companies, even monasteries.
The money was allegedly used to invest in equity of Marfin Investment Group (MIG) owned by Andreas Vgenopoulos, one of Greece's top businessmen and a Laiki chairman, just before the bank's demise.
Bank of Cyprus itself was recapitalized last year by converting almost one-half of large deposits to equity in the world's first ever bail-in.
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