The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has announced the outcome of its review of the potential impact on Cyprus Investment Firms (CIFs) of the Swiss authorities' recent decision to allow the Swiss franc to float freely.
CySEC collected data from all the CIFs that it supervises in order to determine the potential impact on capital adequacy and operations. It found that more than 86% of the CIFs suffered no adverse effect. The remaining 24 CIFs reported having experienced some losses, but that these had no significant effect on their capital adequacy. The equity and capital adequacy ratios of the all affected firms continued to be above the legal minimum requirements.
The total loss suffered by the affected CIFs is in the order of € 42.5 million and principally stems from balances in customer accounts and with liquidity providers. According to CySEC's announcement, investment firms in Cyprus saw a small increase in business due to the problems faced by competitors in other countries.
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