The Individuals' Deposit Guarantee Fund has declared void over 150 deals worth around UAH 20 billion signed with the purpose of removing funds from Delta Bank (Kyiv), the liquidator of the bank Vladyslav Kadyrov said at a press conference on Tuesday.

"There was an attempt of removing assets worth around UAH 20 billion. They tried to remove secured good credits and solvent credits. We declared these transactions void, stopped them and returned to the balance sheet. Now they are as a debt on the balance sheet officially," he said.

At present, court hearings are being held on these deals, Kadyrov added.

He said that among the deals was an attempt of Cargill to remove a credit worth over $100 million from Delta Bank with the help of a letter of credit.

"We saw that those letters of credit are void and we filed a claim to court. In general, 17 false letters of credit worth over $100 million were signed for Cargill. This is so-called "off-balance sheet collapse" worth around UAH 2.5 billion that the bank loses," he said.

He said that the similar scheme was used for deals with Oschadbank (UAH 2 billion), Foxtrot (UAH 2 billion), Avant Bank (UAH 500,000), the State Mortgage Institution and MTS mobile communications operator.

"Oschadbank signed assignment agreements for good credits with good collateral worth UAH 2 billion. Our commission declared these agreements void, and thus we returned the money to the balance sheet. We're fighting for Delta Bank to be the creditor on these credits, not Oschadbank. Oschadbank did not comment on the situation," he said.

The liquidator believes that if the fund manages to return the whole sum of assets to the balance sheet of the bank, the financial institution will be able to settle the problem of the fourth line (deposits worth over UAH 200,000), and total claims on them are some UAH 10-12 billion, according to preliminary assessments.

Kadyrov said that the total sum of approved and accepted claims is around UAH 53 billion.

In turn, Director of the bank insolvency settlement department at the fund Natalia Soloviova said that the deals where shareholders sign agreements for realizing the schemes to remove assets were recorded almost in all banks that are under liquidation.

"Now, as soon as banks face problems, we see that a scheme for removing assets from the balance sheet is being prepared," she said.

She said that this situation was seen with the debt of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) to bank Finance and Credit worth $9 million, which is considered paid under a court ruling, and in IMEXBANK (all based in Kyiv) where the credit of UAH 1 billion was sold for UAH 30 million.

"We consider these agreements void while courts do not," the fund said.

Delta Bank was founded in 2006. Its largest shareholders in early 2015 were Mykola Lahun (70.6059%) and Cargill Financial Services International, Inc. (29.3941%).

Delta Bank ranked fourth among 158 banks operating in the country on January 1, 2015 by total assets (UAH 60.303 billion), according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

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