Citadele Life and the Citadele Bank have reached agreement with the Latvijas Krājbanka subsidiary LKB Life, which is currently undergoing liquidation, on the provision of services to existing LKB Life clients.
Citadele Life has taken over some of the life insurance agreements concluded by AAS LKB Life, while those clients for whom LKB life insurance agreements are about to expire will receive the payout of accumulated sums in accordance with LKB instructions. The payouts will be available beginning on September 3.
“Citadele Life has taken over all LKB Life agreements in the category ‘Life Insurance With Accumulation 1000+’,” says Citadele Life board chairman Jolanta Jērāne. “This means that LKB clients with such agreements are now Citadele Life clients. We will continue to observe the terms which LKB Life indicated, including the guaranteed interest rate. The accumulated sum that has been calculated by LKB Life has been transferred now to Citadele Life for each client.”
LKB Life has announced the abrogation of concluded life insurance agreements, as well as a halt to relevant payouts. Citadele has received a personified list of clients from LKB Life which shows the recipients of payouts and the sums that are to be paid. LKB Life will provide financing to pay out the accumulated sums.
LKB Life clients with a sum to be paid out will be able to receive the sum in lats and in a single payment. If the accumulated sum is in a different currency, LKB Life will have recalculated the sum into lats, doing so on the basis of the Bank of Latvia exchange rate on July 19, 2012. Citadele has been informed of the sums in lats.
“Those LKB Clients with a Citadele account and Citadele Internet banking services will be able to issue free form instructions via the Internet bank, telling us the account to which the sum should be transferred,” says the director of the Citadele Retail and SME Services Directorate, Dace Priede. “Such clients will not have to visit the bank.”
Those LKB Life clients who do not have a Citadele account and do not use the Citadele Internet banking system, in turn, will be able to receive the payout by visiting any Citadele branch or client service centre in Latvia. Clients will be able to indicate an account at any bank to which the sum is to be transferred, or they will be able to receive the payout in cash. Clients must bring along a passport or personal ID. If someone else is representing a client, then that person must bring a passport or personal ID, as well as notarised authorisation from the client. A person representing a legal entity registered in the Latvian Company Register will have to bring along a passport or personal ID, the latest version of the company’s statutes, and a document related to the appointment of the relevant corporate officials.
Tax specialists at the State Revenue Service have said that those clients with whom LKB Life will abrogate the agreement, who have included premium payments during pervious taxation years in justified expenditures, who have received tax relief for previously concluded insurance agreements in accordance with the law on the individual income tax, and who, by the end of the taxation year, will not have concluded a new and long-term life insurance agreement with any life insurance company in company in Latvia to which the relevant accumulated sum will have to be transferred in full, will have to file an annual tax declaration and repay the tax relief because the rule which says that the term of the relevant agreement must be at least five years will not have been fulfilled.
Clients who have questions about the transferred life insurance agreements from LKB Life are asked to ring Citadele Life on 6710-7832. Should there be questions about the calculated or paid sums of previous LKB Life clients, a call should be made to LKB Life on 6709-2757.
JSIC Citadele Life offers savings life insurance services for products linked to the market as well as for savings with guaranteed interest. The company also offers life insurance for borrowers, and life and personal accident insurance as well.
About Citadele Bank
Citadele is a local Latvian bank which offers banking, financial and asset management services. Citadele group is represented in the Latvian market as well as in 10 other countries. Citadele Banka is the only collaboration partner of American Express in Latvia and Lithuania who is entitled to issue American Express credit cards. Citadele’s vision is to become the most valuable financial group in the Baltic States. A study conducted by the Baltic Corporate Management Institute in 2012 recognized Citadele as the best managed state-owned enterprise in the Baltic States. 75% minus one Citadele Bank’s shares are possessed by the State Joint Stock Company Privatization agency on behalf of the Latvian State and the owner of 25% plus one share is the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).