Cyprus’s Finance Minister Michael Sarris told the BBC that large depositors with money in the nation’s banks could lose up to 40% in taxes and levies, much more than has been assumed recently. The cut was expected to be 15% or so.

The much larger amount likely would yield most of the money Cyprus needs to lock in aid from the European Union, European Central Banks and International Monetary Fund. However, it also will cause a collapse in the nation’s banking system, which is a process that already has begun. Most experts expect that when Cyprus opens its banks, depositors will attempt to take out whatever they can.

According to Reuters:

Cyprus’s Finance Minister Michael Sarris said on Tuesday big depositors in Cypriot banks could lose about 40 percent of their deposits as part of a 10-billion euro international rescue plan.

“It could be in that neighborhood but I do not want to anticipate it,” Sarris told BBC radio, adding the exact figure was yet to be decided. “But what I have seen suggests a number in that neighborhood.”

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