Bulgaria withdraws banking license from country's fourth-biggest lender

Bulgaria's central bank has stripped the country's fourth-biggest lender of its license and announced that it will launch bankruptcy proceedings against the bank.

The central bank said in a statement on Thursday that "the management board of the Bulgarian National Bank withdrew the license for banking activity of Corporate Commercial Bank." It also said that according to a report submitted by Corpbank's supervisors it had negative capital of leva 3.75 billion ($2.4 billion).

In June, Corpbank was hit by a run, leading the central bank to put the firm under special supervision after it had stopped all payments and bank operations because of a liquidity drain.

The bank's main shareholder, Tsvetan Vasilev, who is out of the country, has been charged with embezzlement, which he denies.