The Golden Banker

On Tuesday, Zlatan (Zlatan = golden in SerboCroatian) Perucic, Beobanka's President denied stories that this bank was responsible for last week's chaos on the money market and the mass closing down of shops. On the same day some dailies carried the story that the Industry of motors and tractors (IMT) director had sent a written apology to Beobanka and its president because of the ``unobjective letter'' sent a day earlier by IMT's independent trade union to the Serbian Government and Perucic. In the letter IMT workers demand that they get their wages on time and in cash, since Beobanka has sufficient quantities of money for the buying of foreign currency at astronomical rates.

Perucic did not make special mention of the workers, but talked of the economy in general, the citizens, Beobanka's customers. He said the bank was at their service and worked for their interests, and not at the orders of the state. He denied that he was the head of a ``political bank.'' The journalists were told that Beobanka had not bought foreign currency at a highly inflated rates, but according to ``special deals.'' Asked what the difference was between these two methods of buying foreign currency from the citizens, Perucic replied: in the way it was allotted, i.e. in the way purchased foreign currency was used. Beobanka allowed the citizens to cover their accounts and then channelled the rest of the foreign currency to the economy. Perucic denied that Beobanka was responsible for the rocketing of the price of foreign currency (from Friday to Tuesday, the buying rate of the Deutsche Mark jumped from 350,000 dinars to 1.5 million dinars) and blamed the price of the foreign currency used in the economy. Perucic also failed to mention a very important fact: namely, the price of the foreign currency in the economy is not responsible for the plummeting of the dinar, it is always above all other foreign currency rates. It was Beobanka who violated the interbank agreement that the price of one DM would not pass 500,000 dinars. This agreement was confirmed on Monday morning, but on Monday afternoon, Beobanka was offering over one million dinars for one DM. Regardless of the fact if this was done at the bidding of the state or is the result of Serbian politics, the wish of its customers or some unexpected reason, it is a fact that no single bank was as generous as Beobanka when it came to exceptional rates for buying foreign currency.

The motives behind Beobanka's move can only be guessed at, but there are no dilemmas over the fact that the Good Samaritan explanation offered by Perucic leaves a lot to be desired. Beobanka did offer and still does more ways of alleviating the theft of hard currency accounts, and it is under obligation to do so, since a good part of the hard currency collected in this way has remained in its vaults, while the majority of the commercial banks immediately transfer the citizens' hard currency to the central bank. With regard to motive, Perucic failed to inform the public at what price Beobanka sells its hard currency to firms. Is this price greatly under the black market rate or is it the same for all? Perhaps it is not by chance that IMT's director has written a letter of apology, perhaps he is trying to lower the price of the DM for his company?

If the matter concerns the social dimension of Perucic's policy, and this is what lies behind the workers' protest, it must be said that the workers are absolutely right. Perucic has enabled those who have an average of 30 DM to have more, while those who don't have DM or dollars have to face a new disaster. The price of food, clothes and footwear rocketed on Wednesday. Perucic has also increased the grey issue by allowing the owners of accounts and foreign currency to issue dud checks. Put in another way, this is just a legalization of crime and the devastation of the national economy.

In spite of everything, Zlatan Perucic is absolutely right when he claims that he is not responsible for the chaos. He just agreed to carry out such a policy. When the Serbian authorities forced him on Beobanka, experts and those with a sense of professional honor were flabbergasted: how could someone who had never worked in banking come to be the head of a bank?

They were told that Beobanka was working like a well greased machine so that it didn't matter who was at the top. (Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic started his political career when he left a top executive post with Beobankaed.).The question, why does such a bank need someone at the top, remained unanswered. Or perhaps we are learning the answer these days?