uh.oh. "Spectacular Developments" In Austria: Bail-In Arrives After €7.6 Billion Bad Bank Capital

Hole "Discovered"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-01/spectacular-developments-austria-bail-arrives-after-%E2%82%AC76-billion-bad-bank-capital-hol

(bf and ital theirs. I'm not an economist, but this looked kind of important to me. )

Moments ago, Austrian ORF reported that there have been "spectacular developments" in the case of the Hypo Alpe Adria bad bank, also known as the Heta Asset Resolution, where an outside audit of Heta's balance sheet exposed a capital hole of up to 7.6 billion euros ($8.51 billion) which the government was not prepared to fill, the Austrian Financial Market Authority said.

....In short: Austria just cut off state support of what was until this moment a state-backed, wind-down vehicle and a key pillar of trust in what was already a shaky financial system.

....But the punchline, is that while the world was waiting for Greece to announce capital controls, or a bail-in over the past week, it was none other than one of the Europe's most pristeen credits (one which until recently was rated AAA/Aaa) that informed creditors a bail-in is imminent: "The finance ministry noted that creditors can be forced to contribute to the costs of winding down Heta - or "bailed in" - under new European legislation that Austria adopted this year so that taxpayers do not have to shoulder the entire burden."

Bloomberg confirms that the ministry announced that under new EU rules means creditors can be forced to share losses.

Of course, this being Austria, and the Creditanstalt, aka the bank which failed in 1931 under almost identical circumstances and set off the dominos that led to a global financial crisis which in turn bank fanned the flames of the Great Depression, also being Austrian, suddenly everyone is asking: "what just happened and what happens next?"