UPDATE 1 - Second Life bank caps withdrawals amid panic
By Adam Reuters
(Recasts, adds comment from CEO)
SECOND LIFE, July 27 (Reuters) - Second Life’s Ginko Financial was in crisis on Friday after customers panicked and attempted to withdraw more funds than the bank had on hand, forcing it to cap withdrawals to stave off insolvency.
“We are facing a bank run, which has depleted our available reserves,” CEO Nicholas Portocarrero told Reuters in a Second Life interview. He said the company would liquidate some of its assets to raise cash in an attempt to weather the crisis.
“Generaly speaking though, I’m looking to borrow short term cash using them as collateral instead of liquidating them,” he said.
Ginko briefly suspended withdrawals on Friday before reinstating them with a daily limit of only L$5,000 per customer, from L$300,000 previously.
“There is no point having a higher withdrawal limit if we cannot meet the withdrawals with our cash on hand. We need to first replenish our cash reserves,” Portocarrero said.
News of the bank run was first reported by the Virtually Blind website, which covers legal issues in virtual worlds.
Portocarrero, declined to share his real-life name, said the bank had survived previous crises but the current bank run was the most severe.
The Ginko bank run comes during a chaotic week for the Second Life economy which included a major theft at the World Stock Exchange and Linden Lab’s ban on gambling.
Ginko, one of the first virtual banks in Second Life, has long been a magnet for controversy for its high interest rates and lack of transparency or oversight.
As with real world banks, Ginko only keeps a small percentage of its customers’ deposits on-hand at any given time, but unlike real world banks Ginko’s minimum reserves are not set or monitored by a financial regulator. Portocarrero told Reuters that Ginko had about 6 percent of total deposits on hand.
According to the bank’s site, it has more than 18,000 accounts holding a total of L$192,275,403.
