In June, former EBANK CEO "Ricdic" embezzled over 200 billion ISK from the bank and later sold it in real life, triggering the complete destruction of trust built by the organization. While safeguards were in place to halt any corporate malfeasance, EBANK was rocked by the embezzlement and over 380 billion in defaulted loans on top of the corruption have pulled the organization deeper into the red.

According to EBANK's newly appointed Chairman Ray McCormack the bank has been poorly managed; so much so that it took bank administrators weeks to discover how deep the financial hole was. The decision to freeze accounts means players will not be allowed to withdraw funds, and accounts will no longer accrue interest. While 1.2 trillion ISK in losses was enough to rock EVE Online's economy, McCormack says further losses may be not accounted for, "Such as operational losses, additional theft and reporting errors."


As for EBANK's future, the organization also plans to freeze all bank staff salaries and consolidate its various ISK-generating ventures -- which our sister site Massively states are on a massive downswing throughout EVE Online. In hopes to recover player trust, EBANK aims to be more transparent in the future starting with publicly naming individuals and organizations behind defaulted loans that contributed to the 1.2 trillion ISK debacle.

No time frame was revealed for when the bank will resume normal operation, which cannot be comforting for legitimate EBANK customers. According to McCormack, withdrawals will be allowed once the bank achieves "a maintainable equity status of 90% (1.8t currently)." However, if the maintainable equity drops below 80% the bank will freeze operations again -- which is possible considering the bank claims to be losing approximately 12 billion ISK a month.

And all we wanted to do was shoot some stuff in space ...

[Via Ars Technica]