Serbian authorities detained Alta Bank owner Davor Macura on Monday, November 2, on suspicion of illegally removing 45 billion dinars ($428 million) from the private lender. Prosecutors said he was ordered held for 48 hours. Two other people were detained on suspicion of helping carry out the alleged crime.
The detention followed the Serbian central bank’s decision on Saturday to withdraw Alta Bank’s operating license and begin bankruptcy proceedings to protect depositors. The regulator said the bank’s liquidity had deteriorated substantially and risked further decline. Serbia’s Deposit Insurance Agency, which guarantees deposits up to 50,000 euros ($56,000), will administer the bankruptcy.
Macura’s lawyers told local media that he remained at Alta Bank’s Belgrade headquarters during a police search lasting several hours over the weekend and cooperated fully. They said prosecutors would question him on Tuesday. Armed police guarded the bank’s offices in the capital after dozens of customers queued over the weekend to try to retrieve their savings.
Alta Bank became prominent during the rule of former President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party, known as SNS. It processed all electricity payments for millions of users in Belgrade, along with public parking accounts. Macura, whose business interests include retail and construction, owned an exchange office before rising to prominence in banking. Serbian investigative media have previously reported that his connections to Vucic and SNS helped him secure profitable contracts with state agencies and public enterprises.
Action against the bank came amid changes following SNS’s defeat in the October 25 parliamentary election. Those developments included departures from state-run media, the arrests of several officials and plans to revisit long-standing corruption cases. The student-led Student List movement defeated SNS, which had governed Serbia since 2012. Outgoing authorities will retain control until a formal transfer of power, expected to take several weeks.
Former central bank governor Kori Udovicki criticized the regulator’s response on Sunday as too slow. Speaking on RTS television, she said the central bank had lost a week during which it could have restricted transfers abroad or to connected individuals. Meanwhile, the Association of Serbian Banks described Alta Bank’s collapse as “an individual issue” and said other banks would not be affected.
The consequences also reached neighboring countries. North Macedonia’s central bank placed Alta Bank’s subsidiary under temporary administration and capped cash withdrawals at 160 euros ($179) a week. Montenegro’s banking regulator closed the payment processing company Alta Pay.
Alta Bank was among the few Serbian lenders that let tens of thousands of Russian émigrés establish personal and business accounts. Russians have moved to Serbia, which maintains friendly relations with Russia, since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
Macura’s Alta Group previously faced scrutiny from the European Central Bank in 2024 over an attempted purchase of a 20% holding in Austria’s Addiko Group. The proposed acquisition used two connected companies to avoid triggering the ECB’s approval requirement. The ECB identified the arrangement and blocked it, while also questioning anti-money laundering safeguards and the origins of funds within Macura’s business network.
Critics have accused SNS of progressively bringing state institutions under its control and engaging in corruption and cronyism. The party has also faced allegations of connections to organized crime and pressure on courts, police and the media. SNS has denied those accusations.
