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At the end of last month, thousands of Russians living in Serbia lost access to their accounts at the local bank Alta - the Serbian regulator revoked its license. This bank remained one of the few that easily opened accounts for citizens of the Russian Federation. Some are promised to get their money back through the deposit insurance system, but some Russians kept more than the state-insured amount in Alta. The BBC spoke to some of them, as well as Serbian experts, to understand the chances of investors getting their money back.
“Fate didn’t understand us quite right”
“Me, my husband, our five-month-old son and a blind grandmother solve all the problems,” shares Maria (not her real name) in a conversation with the BBC. After the Alta license was revoked, the grandmother was left with almost all her savings, which greatly exceeded the insured amount. In addition, the family’s small business, a second-hand store, was paralyzed, since the accounts for it were also in Alta.
Together with her future husband Kirill (name changed), Maria moved from Russia to Serbia in 2023. “We have long wanted to live abroad, but fate did not understand us quite correctly. We moved for obvious reasons,” says Maria, referring to the beginning of the war with Ukraine. Since then, Maria and Kirill, who managed to get married, live in Serbia.
On October 31, 2026, the couple was waiting for a plane on which Kirill’s husband’s great-aunt, Valentina (name changed), was flying to them. The woman is from Russia and is 83 years old. She spent part of her life in Moscow, but for the last 40 years she lived in Canada, as she married a Canadian. Valentina has dual citizenship, while her relatives have only Russian citizenship.
Valentina's husband died from the effects of dementia, her son also died, although Maria does not know the exact reasons for his death. Due to stress, an elderly woman developed glaucoma three or four years ago, and the woman became blind. She no longer had any relatives in Canada.
“Because she was left alone, it was very difficult for her. Pseudo-friends - for example, so you understand, they took her to the airport for 3 thousand dollars. That's what friends were like. She gave a car to someone, a tractor to someone, and something else to someone. If only someone would help her with something,” says Maria.
The couple could not visit the elderly woman due to difficulties in obtaining a Canadian visa. In addition, Maria was expecting a child, and soon the couple flew to Panama to give birth, which gives citizenship to all those born in the country.
Valentina decided to sell the house in which she lived in Canada in order to bequeath money to relatives in Russia. Maria recalls that Valentina did not communicate with her relatives in Russia for a long time due to a family conflict, but then they made peace, and Valentina even bequeathed her apartment in Moscow to her sister. Valentina herself did not want to go to live in Russia after a long stay in Canada, largely because of her political views.
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Then her sister told her that her cousin Kirill had just moved to Serbia. Valentina flew to Kirill three times over the years - she liked it in Serbia.
“All this time, my grandmother was looking for buyers for the house,” says Maria. According to her, she sold it much cheaper than she could - for 300 thousand euros. Valentina asked Kirill and Maria to help her open a bank account in Serbia.
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The family had an account at Poštanska štedionica. Russians often call it the Serbian Sberbank. “We didn’t use it much because it’s very wooden. It has a terrible app. It has gotten better, but at that time it was generally terrible,” explains Maria.
Therefore, the family kept money in another local bank - Alta. Many financial institutions around the world are hesitant to work with Russian citizens due to sanctions, but Alta was one of the exceptions. “We are like ordinary people, my husband and I don’t have any great savings, that is, just a bank and a bank that everyone used, which has many offices, has some more modern application, payment methods. We did not delve into who is the owner or not the owner. The bank existed for so many years, and all the Russians opened accounts there, including us,” says Maria.
The bank was founded in 1979 in Yugoslavia, but was transferred to a new owner, local entrepreneur Davor Matsura, in 2019. He is an influential businessman with assets in retail trade and construction.
Nothing aroused suspicion among the family: Valentina opened an account with Alta, where she transferred the money from the sale of the house. In 2026, she flew from Canada first to Moscow, where she spent the summer with relatives. And on October 31, she took a ticket to Belgrade, where she was going to live. She wanted to spend part of the proceeds of 300 thousand on special glasses and headphones to make her life easier with glaucoma.
On the night from Saturday to Sunday, October 31, the National Bank of Serbia revoked Alta Bank's license, citing a “significant deterioration in its financial position.” Alta owner Davora Matsura was later arrested on suspicion of embezzling bank funds, and the bank's bankruptcy proceedings began on November 3.
Valentina landed in Belgrade after learning that out of 300 thousand euros, she, like other similar depositors, would at best receive 50 thousand in insurance, as announced by the Serbian Deposit Insurance Agency.
“Alta is the easiest account to open”
The convenience of Alta also attracted Oleg (name changed). He has 70 thousand euros left in the bank - 20 thousand more than the insurance amount.
Oleg left Russia after mobilization, but his wife and child remained. First, the man went to Kazakhstan. “My wife had a good job (as a tester at a bank), we had savings so that I could live in Kazakhstan until everything calmed down. But the further time passed, the more it became clear that we did not want to be in Russia, “talking about important things” played the main role in making a decision,” says the man.
Oleg was the head of the system administrator department at a plant in Russia, but he could not find a suitable job in Kazakhstan. In 2023, his family began to move in with him: first, his wife brought him a child, and then she herself began to look for work in Kazakhstan. But work was difficult, and the couple returned to Russia in 2024, although the family still did not abandon plans to leave the country. Moreover, they managed to sell the apartment in Russia and transferred the money to a Kazakh bank.
In 2025, Oleg’s wife found a job in Serbia and flew there. Like many others, I was able to open an account without any problems only in Alta. The bank spoke English, and also said that they did not need any documents if the family wanted to withdraw money from Kazakhstan, as long as the transfers were up to 10 thousand euros.
According to the latest available data for January 2025, approximately 48 thousand Russians with a residence permit (RP) lived in Serbia in this country. To live in any country, sooner or later you need an account in a local bank. Due to sanctions, many financial institutions around the world are afraid to interact with Russians and often refuse such clients. However, there are exceptions like Alta Bank.
In 2022, Alta even stated that the bank had become extremely exposed to currency fluctuations because a lot of rubles were transferred there “against the backdrop of the war and EU sanctions against Russia.” By the end of last year, Alta's deposits had more than quintupled from pre-war levels.
In 2026, Oleg’s wife became a resident of Serbia (the status of a person who has legally lived in the country for a long time is not equal to citizenship). To become a resident in Serbia, you need to live in the country for a year on a residence permit or work visa.
At the same time, the woman received the right to open a resident account at the bank. “This allows you to send money, as in Russia, using the application. By default, emigrants do not have this opportunity in any bank,” explains Oleg. True, so far she has not been able to do this - other banks only opened a non-resident account for her.
But this helped the family when Alta’s license was revoked: the woman receives her salary into an account in another bank, and they still keep part of the money in Kazakhstan. “My story is boring. There are many people whose situation is much worse,” says Oleg. Nevertheless, the family can lose about 20 thousand euros, because the state insures deposits only up to 50 thousand.
“The Deposit Insurance Agency is a state company. She organizes the entire process, so all amounts less than 50 thousand euros are insured,” Serbian economist Vladimir Vasic explained to the BBC.
Deposits above 50 thousand are, according to Vasich, an emergency situation. The agency may take several years to decide what to do with them. Similar cases have been dragging on in Serbia for 15-20 years, the economist says.
Vasich suggests that in the case of Alta, the process can go faster, since the owner of Alta has assets that are not directly related to the bank, but which can be disposed of - sell them in order to send funds to depositors whose deposits exceed the insured amount.
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With its simplicity, Alta also attracted IT specialist Dmitry (name changed). “I knew, and from my colleagues in particular, that Alta is the easiest place to open an account. Considering all the hassle associated with the move, without thinking twice, I just went and opened it in Alta. Moreover, there was a separate department for these matters; Russian-speaking and English-speaking employees worked there. The bank directly contracted for this story, and everything was done quite conveniently,” Dmitry recalls in a conversation with the BBC.
He and his wife left Russia after mobilization in 2022. The couple traveled to different countries and came to Serbia in 2023 because Dmitry found a job here.
He became suspicious at the end of October this year, when he and his wife had saved up for a down payment on their mortgage and were planning to close the deal by the end of November. “The way it works in Serbia is that you don’t just come, say, I want an apartment, and the bank approves it for you, you ask the bank for a specific apartment or real estate, and we went to Alta with a specific house and said, we want a mortgage,” recalls Dmitry.
The bank refused and did not explain the reason, even when Dmitry began to write to them that he would transfer all the money to another bank. The man recalls that rumors that Alta was having some problems began a few days before the license was revoked.
“I did some simple math in my head: I have plus or minus the insurance amount in my account. I had only just learned that there was such a thing as the sum insured. But on Friday my salary dropped, and I forgot about my worries,” recalls Dmitry.
Now Dmitry regrets: after all, as a resident, he could have opened an account in other banks. “I just never got around to it. My wife and I were saving for a down payment on our mortgage, and we had all our money in Alta because it never even crossed our minds that anything could happen to it. To be honest, I first heard about Alta’s reputation as some kind of laundering bank of [former Serbian President Aleksandar] Vucic or some kind of criminal bank when these rumors started. This is my sloppiness,” admits Dmitry.
Check and suspicion
Alta's license was revoked six days after former President Aleksandar Vucic's ruling Serbian Progressive Party lost parliamentary elections to the Student List.
Alta has sometimes been accused of having opaque financial ties to Vucic. For example, former Serbian MP Marinika Tepic spoke about this.
After the election, bank clients withdrew large sums and transferred significant funds outside the country, Serbian officials told the Financial Times. The Student List, which is expected to form a parliamentary majority within a month and a government by the end of January, has called for a thorough investigation into Alta's activities.
The owner of the bank, Davor Matsura, according to law enforcement, tried to leave Serbia twice. In mid-October, the entrepreneur was not allowed into the airport in neighboring Montenegro without explanation. After the elections, Matsura tried to flee to Moscow, the Financial Times wrote, citing sources.
On November 2, the Financial Times reported that Matsura denied attempting to leave the country, adding that he answered police questions at Alta's headquarters in Belgrade. The entrepreneur accused the outgoing authorities of instead of helping the bank, “they chose the most destructive available measure in the midst of a panic that they themselves allowed.” On November 4, it became known that Matsura was arrested for 30 days.
Previously, the bank came to the attention of the European Central Bank (ECB). In 2024, the ECB was checking whether money was being laundered through Alta because Matsura's entities were trying to acquire a large stake in the Austrian banking company Addiko Group in a way that avoided the need for ECB approval of the deal. The regulator discovered this and stopped the purchase.
The review raised serious concerns and officials questioned the bank's ability to verify the legal origin of money on deposit, the Financial Times wrote, adding that Alta noted that the investigation was closed last year and "neither the ECB nor any other body has found Alta Group or any of its companies responsible for any wrongdoing."
Nine days before the license was revoked, it also became known that American Congressman Joe Wilson proposed to Secretary of State Mark Rubio to impose sanctions against several Serbian businessmen, including Matsura, accusing the entrepreneur of enriching himself at the expense of the Serbian budget and calling him an associate of Aleksandar Vucic.
“They support his corrupt regime, have worked to undermine US interests in the country and the region, and are actively involved in rigging the October 25 elections,” the letter said about the upcoming parliamentary elections in Serbia, while Alta was accused of money laundering.
Alta called these accusations a lie, and Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party did not comment on them.
Gruica Andric, BBC Serbian Service:
“Congressman Wilson co-authored bills introduced in the US Congress that generally criticized the Vucic regime for its lack of democracy and allegedly rigged elections. His initiative regarding Matsura is not a surprise.
Davor Matsura created a business empire in just a few years - during the reign of Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Progressive Party (SPP), which came to power in 2012.
In 2008, Matsura opened a small currency exchange office in Belgrade, and six years later he headed the Serbian Association of Exchange Offices.
In 2019, Matsura’s company acquired a controlling stake in the state bank Jubemes, which allowed Alta to enter the top ten largest banks in Serbia in terms of market share.
Many believe that Matsura's success lies in his close ties to the SPP.
Alta's clients include the largest state-owned companies and public structures in Serbia, such as the national electricity company EPS, Serbian Post, the oil and gas company NIS, the organizers of the Expo 2027 exhibition, as well as the administrations of Belgrade and Novi Sad.
According to the prosecutor's office for combating organized crime, Matsura was arrested on suspicion of "illegally obtaining approximately 45 billion dinars (380 million euros)" by unauthorized withdrawal of funds from a bank vault (the crime was committed until October 31).
According to the general secretary of the Association of Banks of Serbia, Veroljub Dugalic, problems with Alta’s liquidity existed “for months and years,” but the National Bank of Serbia remained inactive until the change of the political regime. Dugalich described Alta as a "party bank."
The question arises: if the election results had been different, would Alta have found itself in this situation?”
“We are waiting for official information”
“We don’t know what to do yet. Grandma is horrified, but she seems to have already come to terms with it,” says Maria. In the family, only Valentina has suffered losses so far. Maria's store accounts contained an amount less than the insured amount.
“Everything is blocked, and we just rented a second room and are doing renovations. Everything happened at the most inopportune time,” Maria sighs.
IT specialist Dmitry and his wife were luckier. They simply opened an account at Raiffeisen Bank. The family managed to pay the rent, the wife received payment for part-time work, and the couple had cash lying around - just for unforeseen expenses.
According to Dmitry, the Russian-speaking diaspora organized itself very quickly and well. Several chats have emerged where people exchange information, local residents help and sympathize with the relocants, he says. For example, an online list of Russian entrepreneurs and their businesses has appeared for those who want to help or simply support with a purchase.
Photo by paradrew.com
Volunteers organized the collection and distribution of food and essentials to those in need.
There is also an interactive map of banks with information about whether it is possible to open an account there and what documents are needed for this. Even free psychological support works. In addition, you can seek free legal assistance or offer it free of charge.
The Serbian authorities promise to begin compensating losses to depositors after November 13. “They promise... but this is Serbia... I just hope that by the end of the month at least this issue will be closed,” Maria is at a loss for words.
After the bankruptcy of the bank, compensation proceeds from the sale of the bank's property will be paid to creditors in turn. Therefore, it is unclear whether people whose deposits exceed the insured amount will be able to receive something - some may simply not get their turn.
Some municipalities that have kept money in Alta are applying to get the money ahead of the queue. So far, the initiative group of victims has prepared objections to the demands of the municipalities.
“We’re trying not to go crazy now, mind our own business, be distracted while we wait for official information,” says Oleg.
Editor Olga Shamina
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