OREANDA-NEWS. February 12, 2013. SEB Pank in Estonia identified a technical error in the interest rate calculation of overdue loans. The bank has repaired the system error and shall reimburse the excess interest payments to private and corporate clients concerned. Average payout per client is five euros, reported the press-centre of SEB Pank.   

At the end of 2012, SEB Pank identified an error in the bank system due to which interest on overdue loan payments continued to accrue. In the case of overdue loans the system should have only calculated interest in arrears and the interest payments should have stopped for the overdue period. The bank immediately fixed the error and identified clients who had been subject to erroneous interest calculation.

The bank will reimburse all clients who had made excess interest payments on overdue loans and had paid both loan interest and interest in arrears on overdue loans. Additionally, SEB shall pay interest in arrears on the excess interest rate payments. For this purpose, the bank shall apply the statutory interest rate set out in the Law of Obligations Act in the amount of up to 11 per cent annually applicable for the period prior to the adoption of the euro and in the amount of 8.25 and 7.75 per cent thereafter.

Reimbursements concern loan agreements of both private persons and companies. In total, 101,797 overdue loan agreements of 72,026 clients were affected. In the case of 99,546 agreements the reimbursements will be made today with a total payment of EUR 493,031 and average payout of five euros. The bank still needs to further assess around 2,251 agreements and the excess payments will be returned to the clients in due course. SEB extends sincere apologies to the clients for the error in the interest calculation.