When Cyprus put its banks into lockdown last weekend until... well indefinitely, now that capital controls are established, the main reason was to halt all capital outflows from the henceforth liquidity starved island whose banks will only exist as long as the ECB provides an ever greater dose of liquidity to account for the collapse in deposit funding. Which is why it is surprising, make that shocking, that as Germany FAZ reports, in the past week there has been a surge in cash outflows from Cyprus, even as its financial system has been supposedly ringfenced from the world, which by the way is the only thing preventing the EUR17 billion bailout from soaring by orders of magnitude because should a liquidity leak be discovered, it is all over for the country's financial system.
From FAZ [8], google translation edited:
Despite the closed banks and a lock for payments in the past week, more money flowed out of Cyprus than in previous weeks, Frankfurter experts report for payments. Prior to the escalation of the crisis in Cyprus accruing on the payment system Target liabilities of Cypriot central bank to the European Central Bank (ECB) had increased daily at approximately 100 to 200 million euros. In recent days was after Parliament the stabilization program initially had to fail, the daily has risen to more than double. Just in the last week so could cash assets have been withdrawn from Cyprus in the billions, although the Cypriot central bank has actually issued a lock.
...
Broad exemptions from capital controls
A few days ago, the Cypriot Fed made aware of the payments was interrupted. In the official announcement, which in these cases are quite common exceptions, however, are very broad. Allowed are transfers of humanitarian aid, those are not received financial stability is at risk, and "special payments", which are not defined in detail. The unusually high outflows from Cyprus in recent days indicated but then, that the central bank in Nicosia control rather liberally interpret, some analysts suspected for payments.
How is it possible that cash is leaving the country even with a bank halt? It isn't, unless of course, the banks aren't really halted, and some outbound wire transfers, which are permitted, are more equal than other wire transfers which are stuck on the island. Of course, that would imply an "Europe Farm" type of arrangement, which in the bastion of fairness, equality and honesty which is Europe, would be absolutely impossible.
On the other hand, if indeed the drain of the Cypriot banking system has continued despite all the enacted halts during the past week, then it's game over for Cyprus, which will soon have only the ECB to thank for providing liquidity, an arrangement that may not be the best long-term outcome for a nation whose economy has basically been gutted in the span of one week.
It also means game over for the bailout as envisioned, as the EUR17 billion is history, and much more cash will have to be injected to cover for the stealth outflows.
Of course, in what is now a Pandora's Box experiment in kicking the box, nothing could possibly surprise us. After all, even in a worst case scenario, there are GETCO algos doing the bidding of the BIS and literally bidding up the EURUSD to such levels as allow everyone to ignore the absolute terminal disaster that has happened in Europe in the past week.