Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov has announced he had approved measures to step up security at bank offices where deposit holders will have access to their savings at Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank or KTB).

Thursday, December 4 is the first day of reimbursement, with deposit holders allowed to manage their assets over the next five years.

Vuchkov told the Bulgarian National Radio police presence would be strengthened at 1150 offices and branches to ensure there will be no tensions about thousands of BGN being withdrawn.

In his words, the average amount of money expected to be withdrawn stands at about BGN 14 000.

However, he called on citizens to act in a "sensible" manner and not rush into the nine banks repaying their savings as early as the first few days or weeks.   

The nine banks are Allianz Bank Bulgaria, DSK Bank, United Bulgarian Bank, First Investment Bank, Raiffeisen Bank (Bulgaria), CIBANK, UniCredit Bulbank, Central Cooperative Bank and Eurobank Bulgaria (Postbank). The Deposit Insurance Fund has introduced a system under which each depositor is to visit a certain bank depending on the last digit of his uniform civil number (UCN). In case of legal entities the bank's name is tied to the last digit of the unified identification code (UIC) or BULSTAT code.

As many as 255 000 people are to be granted access to deposits of up to BGN 196 000 (EUR 100 000) from Thursday, with authorities fearing huge queues and chaos in front of banks all across the country.