July the 28th, 2024 – The American digital bank Mercury has allegedly placed Croatia on its so-called “black list”. Finance Minister Marko Primorac has denied it, and has stated that the institution “isn’t even a bank”.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the American digital bank Mercury has allegedly included the Republic of Croatia on its list of prohibited countries. Naturally, this has created certain problems for Croatian startups and technology companies that have until now used its services for doing business across the pond on the US market.
In a statement made after a recent cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Marko Primorac claimed that the American digital bank Mercury “isn’t even a bank at all”.
“It isn’t a bank. It’s just an institution that operates with several banks, however, according to my knowledge, it had its own problems with money laundering. That’s why it is taking certain precautionary measures in order to eliminate the difficulties it’s facing,” said the Minister of Finance.
Despite the fact that it has been placed under special supervision, he pointed out, in terms of legislation regulating the area of prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism, Croatia is fully aligned with EU legislation. Moreover, he says, the EU recommended to Croatia how to further improve its existing system and, among other things, Croatia has since prepared a national assessment of the risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as an action plan to eliminate the risk.
“Croatia hasn’t been put on any black list. No transactions have been blocked. Business with the Republic of Croatia has not been prohibited, nor did putting the Republic of Croatia under increased surveillance mean that certain mechanisms have been degraded. When we tick all of the boxes as far as the criteria is concerned, we’ll be removed from that grey list as well”, stressed Minister Primorac.
