An online platform for those who lost their savings in the 2013 bank bail-in will go live this summer and disbursements will start being made soon, officials said in parliament on Monday.

The platform will accept applications from ‘haircut’ victims seeking compensation. After logging in and entering their information, they will receive a notification as to what amount they are entitled to, after this is verified. They will then enter their IBAN number so the amount can be transferred to their bank account.

For those whose applications are rejected, they can file an objection.

This concerns losses to uninsured savings – any amount over €100,000.

According to finance ministry official Andreas Karaolis, initially the platform went operational in the spring of 2024 but then ran into technical difficulties.

It has now been rebooted and old users can use the same login credentials.

The platform is set to go live within the second half of this year, said Karaolis – perhaps as early as this summer. Actual payouts to verified victims of the bail-in would happen during this year.

The Solidarity Fund, set up to partially reimburse people, has a €100 million cash reserve for the current fiscal year.

Answering MPs’ questions, the official explained how the compensation is calculated. The maximum payout to an individual is capped at €100,000. For savers with legacy Laiki (Popular) Bank the maximum amount is €100,000, for Bank of Cyprus savers it is €13,032.

For bondholders with Laiki, the maximum compensation is set at €100,000; and for bondholders with Bank of Cyprus at €99,760.

Regarding provident funds who kept their savings with Laiki, Karaolis said that back in 2013 these received 52.5 per cent of the losses sustained. And since 2017 a ‘repletion plan’ has gone into effect for private-sector funds, so that total reimbursement of losses gradually comes up to 75 per cent.

Christiana Erotokritou, chair of the House finance committee, remarked that at long last – 12 years after the bail-in that financially wiped out individuals and businesses – some restitution is forthcoming.

The €100 million available from the Solidarity Fund represents its budget for this year. For 2026 and 2027, she said, the available amounts would depend on the state’s “fiscal space”.

Under the 2013 bailout programme between Cyprus and its lenders, large depositors paid for the recapitalisation of the Bank of Cyprus, heavily exposed to debt-crippled Greece.

As for Laiki Bank, all uninsured deposits there were wiped out, and the lender was wound down and its operations folded into the Bank of Cyprus.

Earlier this year, a finance ministry official told MPs that some €2 billion in ‘haircut’ losses had been verified.