The Banks and Insurance Superintendency shut down the Banco Territorial for a lack of liquidity and for insolvency.

After the announcement, clients flocked to the bank buildings but the doors were shut.

The superintendency, along with the Banking Board and the Deposit Insurance Corporation and other regulatory bodies are in the process of safeguarding the assets of the bank, and protecting the deposits and interests of customers. They have asked the 79,000 people who are clients of the bank to remain calm, saying their deposits are insured.

The Banks superintendent Pedro Solines says they decided to declare the bank unfeasible as a financial institution after looking over technical, legal and financial reports. They will appoint a temporary administrator: Miriam Maldonado.

The clients will be passed over to other banks within 15 days, Solines said. During those 15 days no card transactions or withdrawals will be able to be made by clients. The banks main stockholder is Francesco Zunino Anda.

Solines said that if in those 15 days the negotiations with other banks aren’t complete, the Banco Territorial will go into forced liquidation: the Deposit Insurance Corporation will start paying out as much as $31,000 to each client, to cover their deposits. At the Banco Territorial, 99.2% of clients had less than $31,000 in their accounts.