From an announcement at the International Stock Exchange:

In both RL & SL in order to make money-bank deposits are invested to make a profit to be returned to investor's via interest payments.  Therefore no bank-RL or SL has the funds on hand to allow 100% of all account holders funds to be withdrawn immediately.

Due to the fact that Linden Labs gave us no notice before making their policy public-many folks rushed the ATM's in a panic withdrawing millions & caused us to turn off the ATM's to allow fair distribution & consideration of our options. 

Needless to say-liquidating investments in a quick manor is nearly impossible.  Loans are out-some for up to a year and those folks aren't in the postion to repay their loan immediately-if they were they wouldn't have needed loans in the first place.  Investments in other SL financial entities have either been severely limited or halted due to the recent policy changes or even have dropped in value again due to this recent development. This new policy is already beginning to effect other SL entities and the total effect is still to be determined. We expect to see land prices fall and other things that will result in a true recession within SL. Making liquidation at a worthy value a slow process.

After much consideration & after massive panic withdrawls in the wake of LL's new policy annoucemnt-we have decided NOT to bring our ATM's back online.

Massive withdrawls left us in a position to believe bringing ATM's online creates unfair advantages to folks who are online at the time & near ATM's.  Each persons money-regardless of the size is important. Allowing withdrawls in such a manner is unfair & not in the best interest of our customers.

Instead while we examine our next steps we will begin handling avatar to avatar payments.  We are working on bringing up our website-to not only post annoucements but get account balances for ourselves.  We will then begin accepting notecard requests from account holders with immediate needs.  Please note I state immediate.  Not every request or amount will be able to be honored immediately and will be limited to a daily amount of $2000L each for the time being.  Allowing us time to evaluate the best options and adjustments to be made to progress forward in complying to this new policy while distributing funds fairly.

We believe this is the only fair way to begin distribution while allowing us to be able to consider our next steps and business reorganization.

BCX has always been reliable-never claiming or experiencing attacks, fraud, or other events that have plagued other SL banks.  Our system has proven over & over above other SL banks to be reliable & safe.  It is not a "box system" but a custom developed system NOT offered or shared with ANY other entity.  Other then neccessary upgrades for security & services-we have never limited funds before this new policy.  Our CEO & staff have always been & will continue to be accessible to everyone-never hiding behind secertaries or such.  We have ALWAYS-since opening our doors-worked for improvements in the financial sector-we have hosted meetings asking the financial sector to begin regulating itself-we have donated time & money to groups trying to form a safe & honest business platform for the financial world.  Never have our actions been anything but honest and reliable.  This new policy was a curveball that we did not expect & quite frankly even if we did-could not have prevented the inconviences it has caused.

BCX has ongoing income from outstanding loans, sim leases, & several projects in development-including handling the entire financial services for Central Grid-that will continue.  We are currently looking at all options for restructuring & moving forward and will continue to do that while we work through this new policy conversion.

Linden Labs did a grave disservice to the virtual community yesterday.  Sadly instead of working with the financial sector in putting safe guards in place-they have lumped us altogether with the likes of Ginko-never investigating our business model or speaking to our customers or to our CEO either.  We believe however inconvenient this is-that BCX will survive-restructure-and move forward.  This will not be overnight-we have many options to consider before making firm decisions on our course.  In the meantime we will begin address withdrawls as stated above-exact procedures will be sent to group shortly-including operation times.

Rest assured-as always-BCX staff will be available to answer questions while we work towards the future.  As soon as we have access to our data we will send exact instructions on how to submit a withdrawl request.

Thank you to the many of you who have contacted us-offering support & encouragement.  You cannot know how much it means to us to know that you do understand that this crisis was not created by BCX itself but by Linden Labs.

Sincerely,
Travis Ristow CEO

Stay tuned to SLReports.net for more information.

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Ann Otoole   | 2008-01-11 15:14:16 loans to who? alts? friends? right. recession? no. the percentage of the sl population foolish enough to have engaged in this form of gambling is tiny and the effect of halting this "activity" will be negligible. Reply | Quote 1   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 15:30:32 Ann Otoole wrote: the effect of halting this "activity" will be negligible. Ann, just bcz you didn't agree with the activity doesn't mean others didn't do this. WSE claims to have 22000 users, JTF claims over 10000. I fail to see your credibility in this issue as well. i have never once seen your name around this site until the banking ban, and a google search of your name only brings up comments where you are bitching about other random shit. do you just enjoy making yourself look important in the midst of others misery? Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 15:46:11 "Linden Labs did a grave disservice to the virtual community yesterday." No they didn't. They told you to pay back whom you are scamming from. Period. Quit with your financial sector mumbo jumbo. You need an education in RL business. Everything you write shows that you do not understand real life business. Banks can pay people back. Period, and if not, it's insured by the FDIC in the US. You offer no services, you offer nothing. No one wants to hear your rambling. Go down to the "real" bank, get the money, and pay people back. I could do that within a day. One day. That is all it takes. You either have it, or you don't. If you cannot pay back those you ripped off, you are a scammer. Period. Get an education and offer something positive to the Second Life community. Quit leading people on. Either pay them back immediately or close your doors and quit messing with people. All this non-sense about not being able to pay back like real banks is horse garbage. Me Reply | Quote 0   0

Ann Otoole   | 2008-01-11 15:54:20 at least i, even though i have none irl, have the balls to use my real sl name to make my comments. if this website wants to show some credibility in the face of this nigerian scam shutdown they will require people to use real sl names for comments. comments by people afraid to say who they are must be from scared little kids who need to get off their mom's puter and get back to kindergarden. Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 16:00:48 The only person I see that is actually being honest in this issue is JTF. He is honoring RL USD withdrawls and updating everyone on the situations and exactly how much money he has and doesn't have. Every other bank inside SL is popping up these insane plans about how this dont apply to them or how they are going to get some sort of affiliation that creates a loophole or whatever... all of them are completely unbelievable and just lieing to themselves... and none of them are honoring withdrawals in any substantial way that I know of. Reply | Quote 0   0

Xavier Mohr - Friendly SL Reports Reminder :   | 2008-01-11 16:08:21 Couple of things... First of all, please be respectful with regard to others' opinions, keep things on topic, no name calling or flaming language. I deal with a lot of adult language and really don't mind it all that much, but context is everything and flaming just for the sake of making someone pay attention to you is a total waste of MySQL space. Henceforth, anything significantly off-topic that is an obvious attack will be deleted with no notice or warning, and no announcement. As far as anonymous commenting, this is a standard Internet practice that I love. People whose only goal is to inflame a thread hate it, but those points of view are about worthless to me. When I was CEO of SLR, I made a conscious decision to allow anonymous commenting because I think it gives a better feel for what the community REALLY thinks... since people do not need to fear repercussions for expressing their opinions. While changing the commenting system is no longer a decision over which I have control, I stand by my original decision to allow user anonymity and would fiercely oppose any change in the other direction. Otherwise, just calm down, keep reading, keep commenting with respect for both sides... no matter which side you may be on. Xavier Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 16:08:24 @3 Go do a google search on "bank run" before running your mouth. Obviously if banks just held nothing but cash, they could not pay interest (whether in RL or SL). Putting it to work requires moving customers cash into other investments to earn money, which takes time to get out of these investments (in the case of loans, a long time). Obviously you have made the same mistake as the Lindens in assuming all SL banks are scammers. If you don't know what you are talking about, at least have the good sense to keep your trap shut. Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 16:27:12 "If you don't know what you are talking about, at least have the good sense to keep your trap shut." I'm a real life business owner. Have been since the early 90's. I have a background in business and education. There is no such thing as a bank in SL. None. Like it or not. I'm not on a side or the other. No sides. How anyone could put their L in someone's account in SL is beyond me. Look at the LL TOS, look at the transaction sheet when you deposit via your online account. Banks in RL offer services to individuals and companies. Why don't you ask your SL bank to offer even a single real banking service? Furthermore, LL is the financial sector in SL. They are the ones making/backing their L dollars with end users real bank monies. They run the market. No one else. Just the facts... Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 17:51:20 Banks in SL are risky,duh. But I was making some good money between investing and banking. JTF was doing right by it's customers, but LL is not. I'm going to lose over 100k lindens. So now instead of having a 2048m plot of land i'm getting rid of all but 512m so at least they won't get any tier money from me. Reply | Quote 0   0

SLReports.net User   | 2008-01-11 18:03:27 To the above, Virtual Ponzi schemes — pardon, "Banks" can exist for as long as people are putting their hard earned money into it. It's when they are called on the bluff that they fail. This can go on for years. Do you believe that you were treated well by losing 100KL? If I told you I would give you 2500 percent return on your L if you will let me have it for a couple years would you do it? If so why? If not why? Good news articles coming out in the news. One called cowboy banks, one slashdot article. This is a blast watching Linden grow up and be responsible. About time. Me Reply | Quote 0   0

Yanik Lytton   | 2008-01-11 22:47:22 Me, I don't know about FDIC, but here is Canada, your bank deposit is insured for up to 60k$. No banks post it anywhere. If you put more in, you are taking some risks. Wether you know it or not. At least in SL, you can read everywhere, form LL to banks or exchanges TOS, from books about Business in SL to classes on How to make moeny in SL, that investing is risky; banks are risky; and you may lose everything. Now do I need to sign a disclosure as well? What if i want to take that risk? Everyone knows you should be careful when crossing a street. Some intersections even have signs about it. Should we ban the cars? LL would. As for Linden growing up, maybe you are right. They have upgraded their public relation with 12 yo reps. Bravo! If you have never put money in a bank in SL, or never invested in a company via a stock exchange, then why do you care to post? If you think you can do without a finacial sector in SL, then good for you. Go on with your chores, and be forever happy. But please, think it over before putting all companies, all banks or financial institution in the same basket. The economy do not run on prim skirts. Reply | Quote 0   0

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