# Banking holiday in Panama



## BillS (May 30, 2011)

http://www.randyhilarski.com/banking-holiday-in-panama/

This morning the National Bank of Panama announced that it was suspending all services until Tuesday the 1st of October. The National Bank of Panama says that the reason is to upgrade systems. The Banking Holiday in Panama was announced this am.

This system wide shutdown has country wide implications. The National Bank of Panama did not warn the people before making the announcement and shutting down the banks. The people do not have access to ATM's either. We received word of this from family members first. This weekend is payday for people across Panama.

I am active among the Gold and Silver investing community. We have been discussing at great length about the possibility of bank holidays in countries on the Dollar standard. Could Panama just be the first domino to fall in the banking system? Could this be more than just a system upgrade? Why not tell the people ahead of time to prepare for the closure of the banking system?

What are some reasons for a bank holiday? The National Bank of Panama says it is a system upgrade, I don't believe it is that simple. Maybe a Dollar revaluation could be coming soon. Maybe it is something more serious like a banking crisis like we had in Indonesia back in 1997 or more recently in Cyprus. I am hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

What are some things you can do to protect yourself if Panama is just the first signal of a pending banking crisis? First and foremost make sure to have some cash. Second buy the essentials for your family. Be frugal until the storm passes. I know this sounds simplistic, but those who are prepared will be fine.

I feel for the Panama families who live paycheck to paycheck. They were expecting to be paid tomorrow. This is the time that they go grocery shopping, put gas in their cars and pay the bills. This delay will have wide ranging affects on the people of Panama.

Do not be unprepared, you have it within your power to be ready for such a situation!

Latest update. 6pm CST

The Clave (Debit Card) system has been taken offline. No wire transfers between banks and internationally until the 1st of October. Panamanians will be required to go to their local bank branch to take out cash.


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

Very scary. Makes me glad I listened to people on this site and stored some cash and PMs for events like this. Never want to see that happen here, but I feel better knowing I'm better prepared. And the advise of those same great people on this site have helped me analyze this situation and my preps for this situation...I have gaps in my preps that I'll work to fix this weekend.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

I can find no back up to this one article. Could be real or not.:dunno:


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## lovetogrow (Jan 25, 2011)

BillS - "Could Panama just be the first domino to fall in the banking system?" 

Say it aint so!


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

hiwall said:


> I can find no back up to this one article. Could be real or not.:dunno:


I was suspicious as well, but a quick search found https://www.banconal.com.pa. The home page displays the same notice BillS posted in the OP. It's possible this closure is really for a system upgrade, but it's suspicious that no notice was given.

Over the past month, I have come to understand why those that lived through the Great Depression stored at least some of their money outside of banks.

Invision---any thoughts or chatter on this? Made me immediately think of your book!!


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## ONEOLDCHIEF (Jan 5, 2012)

Have heard that something like this is suppose to be in the works for the US. The banks will close because of some upgrade or because the system was hacked and when it reopens, it will be using UN currency... Just rumors, but sometimes there is truth in rumors... I hope this is not one of them...:dunno:


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## biobacon (Aug 20, 2012)

Still waiting for that October 1st issue LOL. Funny that that's when their system will be back up eh?


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## Moose33 (Jan 1, 2011)

Presuming this is fact, I do not, for one second, believe any government shuts down an entire banking system, without notice, for an entire day because of systems upgrades.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Moose33 said:


> , without notice, for an entire day because of systems upgrades.


Correct, notifications are always in advance unless it is an emergency security patch.


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## Country Living (Dec 15, 2009)

I wonder if the bank was hacked and they brought the system down to halt the attack and to upgrade the system security.


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Country Living said:


> I wonder if the bank was hacked and they brought the system down to halt the attack and to upgrade the system security.


That was my first thought, and would be the "non-hyper-speculative" theory. Have to wait and see I guess.


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## jnrdesertrats (Jul 3, 2010)

I found this from the state department. It says it is the sixth such meeting so maybe it is a coincidence?

Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC

September 27, 2013
Share on facebookShare on twitter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson will travel to Panama City, Panama on October 2 for the sixth Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Ministerial, hosted by the Government of Panama. At the ministerial, senior government officials, policy makers, business leaders, and representatives from international organizations throughout the Americas will share best practices and seek new opportunities to promote inclusive economic growth and prosperity in the hemisphere. During her visit to Panama, Assistant Secretary Jacobson will be joined by Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce Patrick D. Gallagher.

Pathways to Prosperity partners include 15 Western Hemisphere governments and societies that collectively seek to empower small businesses, facilitate trade and regional competitiveness, build a modern and inclusive workforce and encourage green, sustainable business practices. Current participating countries include Belize, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States. The Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean are strategic Pathways partners.

The Pathways Ministerial will be followed on October 2-4 by the VII Americas Competitiveness Forum (ACF), hosted by His Excellency Ricardo Martinelli, President of the Republic of Panama, under the theme of "Infrastructure and Technology Shaping Countries Today." ACF provides a platform for dialogue on how to strengthen innovation and competitiveness in the Americas and to foster investment opportunities in the region.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/09/214843.htm


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

hiwall said:


> I can find no back up to this one article. Could be real or not.:dunno:


I posted a link to the bank site. You can make out enough of the words to see the suspension is real.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

The article doesn't mention it but Panama doesn't use their own currency. They use US dollars. There's speculation that a dollar devaluation is coming. Or maybe Panama is going to do a bail in.


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## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

For me, it reinforces the need to keep some cash at home, in your car and at work.

I go back to the story of being approached by a young lady in a supermarket parking lot asking me for cash. She was at the gas station next door and her card was not working. She said she did not have enough gas to get home and had no cash on her. Some cash stashed in her vehicle would have saved the day.

And could a ‘bank holiday’ happen here? You are a sandwich shy of a picnic if you think it could not! Being prepared means being especially prepared for an event that has and IS still happening in the world.


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

This was yesterday.

News Release - Statement from the Bank of England

The Bank has been experiencing some technical IT problems today. There is no impact on critical payment and settlement services. Alternative procedures are in place where necessary. The Bank is acting to resolve these problems as soon as possible.

This is the total statement!


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## walter (Jun 5, 2013)

Panama has banks?


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

Tweto said:


> This was yesterday. News Release  Statement from the Bank of England The Bank has been experiencing some technical IT problems today. There is no impact on critical payment and settlement services. Alternative procedures are in place where necessary. The Bank is acting to resolve these problems as soon as possible. This is the total statement!


 Holy sh!t! Sorry for the cursing, but that's crazy..... I said before I was filling in the gaps in my preps this weekend; i.e., add cash to my home stash. Headed out to bank now. Invision, Invision... Where are you?


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## mojo4 (Feb 19, 2012)

21601mom said:


> Holy sh!t! Sorry for the cursing, but that's crazy..... I said before I was filling in the gaps in my preps this weekend; i.e., add cash to my home stash. Headed out to bank now. Invision, Invision... Where are you?


I heard his plane just landed in Belize. He still has to remote uplink to his communication satellite and place sell orders before he posts. I'm luckier though. I went to drain my bank account and was able to get it all out at once. I never knew ATM's spit out dimes and nickels!!


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## ONEOLDCHIEF (Jan 5, 2012)

Get ready boys and girls, they are about to separate those who are prepared from the zombies...eep:


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## BlueShoe (Aug 7, 2010)

I'm not buying it.


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## drfacefixer (Mar 8, 2013)

There are plenty of Panamanian Expat sites - A few quick searches on those has a lot of replies similar to this:

"I saw the announcement last Monday when I was at the bank in Bocas. It was posted at the ATM but I'm not sure how long the notification had been up before I saw it. Considering that the National bank does not print money, nor control the money flow to other banks in the country, I doubt a comparison to Cyprus has any validity."

"The Boquete Banco Nacional closed today at noon, and will re-open again on Tuesday the first of October. I have seen the notices there, including the take out notices sitting on their desks, announcing the updates to their electronic banking system. Nice to see them upgrading, but the biggest mess will be on Tuesday once people start using the system. The bugs and the gremlins will be out in full force........... 

Google searches pop up a hundred gold and silver trading sites that are getting in a frenzy. I think its less of a sign and more of a chance to capitalize on fear.


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## biobacon (Aug 20, 2012)

Then there is this,

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/italy-government-survival-doubt-over-190843114.html

Italian government near collapse after budget talks fail

ROME (AP) -- The Italian government appeared in peril Thursday after nearly all the senators of Silvio Berlusconi's party vowed to resign if the former premier is ousted from Parliament for his tax fraud conviction.

Premier Enrico Letta announced in New York that he would go see the Italian president as soon as he returns to Rome on Friday to discuss how to move forward with what he called the "humiliation" Italy is going through.

The Senate is due to vote next week on whether to strip Berlusconi of his seat following his conviction of tax fraud and four-year prison sentence. A 2012 law bans anyone sentenced to more than two years in prison from holding or running for public office for six years.

Berlusconi has not only proclaimed his innocence, but has challenged the law's applicability since it was passed after the crimes occurred. Arguing that prosecutors are bent on eliminating him from political life, he has appealed to both Italy's Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to intervene.

With tensions high, 87 of the 91 senators of Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party turned in letters of resignation Thursday pending the outcome of the Oct. 4 vote, said Renato Schifani, head of Berlusconi's party in the Senate.

"It's a persecution that began in 1994 and is being completed now," Schifani told TG4 news, referring to Berlusconi's entry into politics. He argued the Senate vote shouldn't take place until after Italy's Constitutional Court reviews the 2012 law.

Berlusconi was convicted over a scheme to purchase the rights to broadcast U.S. movies on his Mediaset empire through a series of offshore companies that involved the false declaration of payments to avoid taxes. His defense argued that he was busy in politics at the time and no longer involved in managing the day-to-day activities of the business.

Italy's high court upheld the conviction on Aug. 1.

Berlusconi has flip-flopped on his view of whether Letta's coalition should survive, saying only recently that he wouldn't bring down the government. Five of his allies are Cabinet ministers, including his political heir Angelino Alfano, the deputy premier.

Investors responded to the political tensions with concern Thursday.

Milan's stock index closed down 1.2 percent while the government's borrowing rates on the bond markets rose, both signs that investors are worried about the impact on the country's financial stability. Though Italy hasn't needed a financial bailout like other countries that use the euro, such as Greece and Portugal, it has high debts that have compelled successive governments to instigate wide-ranging economic reforms.

Italy's respected President Giorgio Napolitano issued a blistering rebuke of the lawmakers' threat to resign, saying Thursday they were undermining Italy's parliamentary system. He said if carried out, their "worrisome" threat would have the effect of pressuring him into dissolving parliament, a move that would spark a crisis in Letta's 5-month-old, left-right hybrid government.

Napolitano said it was "absurd" for Berlusconi's allies to claim that the media mogul was being overthrown in a "coup" by magistrates. He insisted that definitive court rulings must be respected and applied, saying it's a principle that is as sacrosanct throughout Europe as the independence of the judiciary itself.

"There is still time, and I hope it is used, for People of Freedom lawmakers to find a way to express their political and human support for their party president - if indeed that is their aim - without threatening the work of two branches of parliament," he said.

The threat to essentially bring down the government over the legal woes of a single man was seen as downright irresponsible given that it came at the precise time that Letta was in New York promoting recession-mired Italy as a safe place for foreign investment.

Gianluca Susta, who heads the Civic Choice party of ex-Premier Mario Monti in the Senate, said any such resignation by Berlusconi's lawmakers would make them appear more like the "court of an absolute monarchy" than elected representatives in a democracy.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

21601mom said:


> I was suspicious as well, but a quick search found https://www.banconal.com.pa. The home page displays the same notice BillS posted in the OP. It's possible this closure is really for a system upgrade, but it's suspicious that no notice was given. Over the past month, I have come to understand why those that lived through the Great Depression stored at least some of their money outside of banks. Invision---any thoughts or chatter on this? Made me immediately think of your book!!


Sorry, been preparing an updated version to Book 1 - I screwed up the copy edit pretty bad and embarrassed so much that I had to redo them before even more people bought the book... Also preparing for paperback.

Here is my knowledge on US banks' internal networks... The larger banks - such as BofA, Wells, Chase, etc. - run their own independent systems, aka proprietary systems for such things as - loan application processing, online banking, etc. The smaller banks - use systems provided by companies like Jack Henry.

I am can't say exactly how banks tie into Check 21 regulations - I wrote a white paper on the subject when Check 21 first came out back in 00-01?... Check 21 regulations are how the sending digital images of checks to the Federal Reserve for clearing and transferring money from one account holder at one bank to another person at a different bank are defined. My memory is fuzzy, but I think (without verifying) the Federal Reserve setup the requirements for the inter network exchange and it was up to the banks how they wanted to connect their systems to it. My guess on this is each mega bank's system was proprietarily written so that it would work with their existing systems at their data centers. For the service providers like Jack Henry, they would also have written custom code to integrate their systems into the clearing house.

So, I would say that it would be highly unlike to see a bank holiday for "system upgrades" in the US. The banks with their own systems have enough resources to have a duplicate testing "lab" (for better word) where every change request is fully vetted prior to being released into production. For the smaller banks that would use a Jack Henry type solution, the vendors would also have the same setup as the large institutions where everything is tested prior to pushing software updates.

I have no knowledge of how Panamas banking systems are interconnected or if they have only one bank perhaps - similar to Cyprus who had only two state banks... If that is the case, then definitely a system patch could have failed, even if properly tested in a lab, it can happen, seen it, been there, don't want to go back.


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## Hooch (Jul 22, 2011)

just a wild thought...

I wonder if they (tptb) steal all the money, say they got hacked during the "upgrade" n then blaim some universal bad guy and say it was in retaliation for finding the weapons in that cargo ship from N. Korea a few months back...

..just a thought that popped into my head...makes ya wonder why they would do this especially since they are holding that big meeting...without notice folks even in gov will be caught off..hotel rooms, food, catering, office stuff for big meetings cost...makes ya wonder...


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

invision said:


> Sorry, been preparing an updated version to Book 1 - I screwed up the copy edit pretty bad and embarrassed so much that I had to redo them before even more people bought the book... Also preparing for paperback. Here is my knowledge on US banks' internal networks... The larger banks - such as BofA, Wells, Chase, etc. - run their own independent systems, aka proprietary systems for such things as - loan application processing, online banking, etc. The smaller banks - use systems provided by companies like Jack Henry. I am can't say exactly how banks tie into Check 21 regulations - I wrote a white paper on the subject when Check 21 first came out back in 00-01?... Check 21 regulations are how the sending digital images of checks to the Federal Reserve for clearing and transferring money from one account holder at one bank to another person at a different bank are defined. My memory is fuzzy, but I think (without verifying) the Federal Reserve setup the requirements for the inter network exchange and it was up to the banks how they wanted to connect their systems to it. My guess on this is each mega bank's system was proprietarily written so that it would work with their existing systems at their data centers. For the service providers like Jack Henry, they would also have written custom code to integrate their systems into the clearing house. So, I would say that it would be highly unlike to see a bank holiday for "system upgrades" in the US. The banks with their own systems have enough resources to have a duplicate testing "lab" (for better word) where every change request is fully vetted prior to being released into production. For the smaller banks that would use a Jack Henry type solution, the vendors would also have the same setup as the large institutions where everything is tested prior to pushing software updates. I have no knowledge of how Panamas banking systems are interconnected or if they have only one bank perhaps - similar to Cyprus who had only two state banks... If that is the case, then definitely a system patch could have failed, even if properly tested in a lab, it can happen, seen it, been there, don't want to go back.


 Thanks for the input! Heard you might be headed for Belize! Glad it was just book revisions keeping you away. From what I see online (who knows how reliable), Panama has two state owned banks. I find it so suspicious because I would expect Panama would have the resources and common sense to could create at least one or two testing environments. I have a hard time believing anyone with even an undergrad in IT would design a system that required the "production" site to be taken down for maintenance for four days. So many other options available, as you know. I've been through failures of well tested upgrades/patches, and it was bad, but I'm shocked that they would not have appropriate backups. Perhaps I'm just too suspicious and being overly judgmental of their system. just seems so odd; I immediately thought of Cyprus. And then bio bacon posted the link about Italy.

Looking forward to starting the book soon!


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

21601mom said:


> Thanks for the input! Heard you might be headed for Belize! Glad it was just book revisions keeping you away. From what I see online (who knows how reliable), Panama has two state owned banks. I find it so suspicious because I would expect Panama would have the resources and common sense to could create at least one or two testing environments. I have a hard time believing anyone with even an undergrad in IT would design a system that required the "production" site to be taken down for maintenance for four days. So many other options available, as you know. I've been through failures of well tested upgrades/patches, and it was bad, but I'm shocked that they would not have appropriate backups. Perhaps I'm just too suspicious and being overly judgmental of their system. just seems so odd; I immediately thought of Cyprus. And then bio bacon posted the link about Italy. Looking forward to starting the book soon!


Thanks..

You would be shocked at how many places DO NOT have a redundant test lab of their production servers... I could rattle off at least 4 asset management firms, I know personally! half a dozen Top 50 law firms, and even a few global firms... So honestly I can see it, also, we are talking panama, so how behind is their backup solutions? Disk to tape? Even disk to disk if it isn't at the bit level can be a tremendous undertaking to restore. The best solution would be vmwares Datacenter, snap the server, apply patch - it fails, kill virtual and bring up snap.. But can they get VMware Datacenter there? The backup solution that I offer clients, I am limited to where I can sell it - 256 AES Gold encryption, d-d bit level, virtualization and bare metal restores... Have clients with offices overseas in Asia, and can't install it over there...

Nah, would never move out of the country... Someone will have to help pick up the pieces after TSHTF. Roflmao.


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## 21601mom (Jan 15, 2013)

invision said:


> 256 AES Gold encryption, d-d bit level, virtualization and bare metal restores...


Ah, to dream!! I was reading your whole post thinking "gosh, I miss IT!" Then I remember the meetings with c-level execs who 1) thought they knew better, 2) didn't see the value of the investment in redundancy and 3) would blame IT in a heartbeat if an issue occurred from their poor decisions. Don't miss that part!

Ok, off IT and back to OP. Very glad I went to the bank and took out more cash to add to my emergency money. Can't wait to check the Panamanian bank sites on Tuesday to see if the "upgrade" has been completed.


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## BlueShoe (Aug 7, 2010)

So today was the day the banks were to reopen. What's the status. A quick search didn't show anything.


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