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CORRUPTION

Autopsy confirms convicted Spanish banker committed suicide

An autopsy on the body of the former head of Spanish bank Caja Madrid, who was sentenced to six years in prison for graft, confirms he committed suicide, officals said on Thursday.

Published: 20 July 2017 16:30 CEST
Autopsy confirms convicted Spanish banker committed suicide
Miguel Blesa established a 'corrupt system' while head of Caja Madrid.

Miguel Blesa, one of the figureheads of Spain's financial crisis, was found dead on Wednesday with a gunshot wound to his chest at a private hunting estate in the southern province of Cordoba.

An autopsy was carried out on Thursday at a forensics institute in Cordoba as part of an investigation into his death.

The autopsy “confirms that his death was caused by a self-inflicted firearm wound,” the regional government of Andalusia said in a statement.   

Blesa, 69, was chairman of Caja Madrid from 1996 to 2009, one year before it merged with six other troubled savings banks to create Bankia.   

A court in February sentenced him to six years in prison for his role in a credit card scandal at the lenders.

Caja Madrid and later Bankia gave their board members and executives credit cards that were used without control.  

The court ruled that the so-called “tarjetas black” or “black cards” were used to fund a €12 million ($13.8 million) spending spree between 2003 and 2012.

Blesa was accused of setting up the scheme and was found guilty of havingmisappropriated €435,000.

READ MORE: Ex-banking chiefs handed jail sentence for embezzlement

In total 65 former staff were convicted of misappropriation of funds.    

Among those who were convicted was former International Monetary Fund head Rodrigo Rato, who chaired Bankia between 2010 and 2012. He was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.

Both Blesa and Rato appealed the ruling.

Rato (L) and Blesa in court in February. Both were found guilty and sentenced to jail but were at liberty pending appeal after paying a bond. Photo: AFP

The government was forced to partly nationalise Bankia in 2012, prompting Spain to turn to its eurozone partners for tens of millions of euros of emergency aid to rescue the financial sector.

Just before his body was found, Blesa was having breakfast with friends at the estate in Cordoba and left the table saying he had to move his car, according to Spanish media reports.

He asked his friends if they had his wife's phone number in case they needed to reach her, according to the reports which cited witnesses and unnamed sources close to the investigation into Blesa's death.

Blesa in 2013 became the first prominent banker to go behind bars since the start of Spain's financial crisis.

He was jailed as part of a probe into Caja Madrid's purchase in 2008 at an inflated price of the City National Bank of Florida, but was released a few days alter after that case was dropped.

BANKING

Card over cash? Why Germany is seeing a new payment preference

Cash has long been king in Germany, with many smaller retailers refusing to join the rest of the world in adopting contactless payment systems. But card-based payments are on the rise, as recent stats about Girocard use reveal.

Published: 13 February 2024 12:31 CET
Card over cash? Why Germany is seeing a new payment preference

Germany has long been a very cash-based country, occasionally to the dismay of frustrated tourists at the Döner shop.

A few German phrases express the people’s love of physical money. There’s ‘only cash is true’ – Nur Bares ist Wahres. Or Bargeld lacht, literally meaning cash laughs, but used to imply that cash is what’s wanted, similar to ‘cash is king’ in English.

But the classic German preference for cash appears to be evolving, as the use of girocards is growing, even for small transactions.

How are girocards being used?

Girocard, an ATM and debit card service offered by German Banks, was designed to allow customers to use virtually all German ATMs and, increasingly, to make purchases at businesses.

READ ALSO: Ask an expert – Why is cash still so popular in Germany, and is it changing?

Last year, consumers in Germany used their Girocard more often than ever before for cashless payments. A total of €7.48 billion payment transactions with the plastic card were counted – 11.5 percent more than in the previous record year 2022, according to figures published by the Frankfurt-based institution Euro Card Systems.

Whether at the bakery, petrol station or supermarket, customers are increasingly pulling out their cards at the checkout, even for smaller amounts. As a result, the average amount paid with the Girocard fell from €42.34 to €40.69 within a year. 

The rise of card payments in Germany

Contactless payment, which is possible with girocards and credit cards that have an NFC chip, got a boost during the Covid pandemic, as retailers promoted it for hygiene reasons. 

But the use of card payments has continued to grow in Germany since then, boosted partly by the increasing use of girocards.

Promoting the use of girocards, some German banks have expanded their cards’ functions: Sparkassen, Volksbanken, or Raiffeisenbanken offer girocards for the digital wallet, for example.

Banks want to continue upgrading the payment card with further applications. For example, a project is being tested which would add an age verification function to girocards that would be useful when a customer is buying cigarettes.

On the retail side, it’s clear why the Girocard is preferred to other debit options.

“We see that debit cards from international providers cost up to four times more,” Ulrich Binnebößel, Head of the Payment Systems & Logistics Department at the German Retail Association (HDE) told DPA.

What’s the difference between the Girocard and other debit?

The Girocard is a strictly German phenomenon. It can be seen as the latest iteration of the EC card, which was created to consolidate payment systems following the unification of former East and West Germany.

In 1991 different debit card systems, including Eurocheque guarantee cards from former West Germany and Geldkarte ATMs from former East Germany, were unified into Eurocheque cards.

Then in 2001, the Eurocheque system was disbanded, but German banks continued to use the EC logo for “electronic cash’” cards, or EC cards. In 2007, the German Banking Industry Committee introduced Girocard as a common name for electronic cash and the German ATM network.

Girocards are only issued and accepted in Germany, so if you want to get one of your own, you’ll have to join a German bank, and shell out those notorious German banking fees.

READ ALSO: Why it’s almost impossible to find a free bank account in Germany

Alternatively, you can get by with internationally accepted debit cards provided by a bank in your home country, or otherwise by joining an app-based European banking service like N26. 

But be warned, without the Girocard in hand, at some smaller retailers you may be told, “Leider nur Bargeld oder EC-Karte.”

With reporting by DPA

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