Cyprus Company News

Hellenic Bank presented the “JumpStart” scholarship programme, which grants 20 scholarships to 20 students, worth €2,000 per year up to the fourth year of their studies and based on specific academic, social and economic criteria. By words of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hellenic Bank Evripides Polycarpou, the programme would support young people with dreams and with talent, giving them “the tools to pursue their dreams.” In the update on the scholarship programme, videos about the outreach campaigns with existing scholarships were shown, and an explanatory video on the electronic submission of the applications. The application process will take place from 1 to 30 of October 2019.

The integration process of Cyprus Cooperative Bank (CCB) and Hellenic Bank was completed this week, a year after Hellenic Bank acquired CCB in September 2018 which had become unviable after the 2013 banking crisis, because of its failure to reduce its non-performing loans. There will be no fundamental changes that will affect clients of the former CCB, and the bank assures of their smooth transfer to the “new Hellenic Bank”. The testing of the system started about a year ago, and has been intensified in the last months. All the former CCB cards will operate normally in Cyprus and abroad until they are gradually replaced. The former IBAN and BIC numbers of CCB clients will change but the previous ones still can be used. Loans of the former CCB clients will remain under the same terms.

The Bank of Cyprus puts its procedures in full compliance with the European Payment Services Directive, which requires stronger customer authentication procedures in electronic payments protection. Under the European Payment Services Directive and the provision and use of Payments Services and Access to Payment Systems Law, banks are required to implement stronger customer authentication to secure payments. In cases where payment service providers apply stronger customer authentication, they also adopt security measures that meet specific requirements. The major changes which will apply to all Bank of Cyprus digital channels will include adoption of an additional authentication measure upon subscribers’ login namely “Trust Device”. Also, the old Digipass Hardware will be terminated, and can be replaced with a new Digipass SMS or APP via Internet Banking. All these changes have the purpose to further enhance digital security of the bank and provide safe environment for banking transa...