Your report (Nikos Christodoulides elected Cyprus’s president with 52% of vote, 12 February) says “the island’s banking crisis a decade ago … has been widely blamed on the disastrous handling of the economy by the leftwing then president, Demetris Christofias”. The banking crisis was in fact the result of very poor regulation and supervision by the Central Bank of Cyprus (see, for example, the Lascelles report), huge nonperforming loans built up by the two largest commercial banks, poor governance at the banks (resulting in conflicts of interest vis-a-vis overextended property developers) and various other factors related to the banking sector and the real estate sector. This was not unique to Cyprus. A similar story was seen in Ireland and Iceland.
Dr George M Georgiou
Former head of governor’s office, Central Bank of Cyprus
