Slovenia’s central bank governor Bostjan Jazbec said he will quit after receiving death threats, which he thinks are related to the bail-in of local banks several years ago.

In 2013, the Slovenian government poured more than €3bn into banks to prevent them from collapsing due to their bad loans. About €600mn of subordinated bonds of six troubled Slovenian banks were scrapped while about 100,000 shareholders lost their banks' shares.

Jazbec received several threats on his mobile phone, and he informed the police accordingly, the central bank said in a statement on March 20.

The name of the sender of the messages, who also threatened Jazbec’s children is unknown, but the central bank governor said they could be coming from people who lost money as a result of the bail-in. As well as stepping down from his position, Jazbec has sought police protection.

“The threats are intolerable. After the banks’ recovery was carried out in 2013 and 2014, I have faced a media lynch and was threatened with lynching in comments on articles published without censorship by readers,” Jazbec said according to the statement.

He claimed to have received a letter from a member of one of the civil initiatives of holders of extinguished bank shares and bonds, who “threatened that those of us involved in the recovery, should the authorities fail to begin proceedings against us, would ‘be lynched by the people in the next uprising’.” 

“In recent years I have also been subject to verbal abuse from passers-by in the street. I do not want to speculate about the perpetrators. I dare say that I am a thorn in the side of all those who lost money in the bank recovery,” Jazbec added. 

He reiterated that he stood by his actions in 2013: “I … repeat: the bank recovery in 2013 was necessary because of the failure of governments to respond in timely and correct fashion between 2008 and 2012, in particular their failure to heed the calls for the urgent recapitalisation of the largest state-owned banks.”

The date for his departure from the position of central bank governor will be known in the coming weeks.

Jazbec was confirmed on March 19 to take up a senior role with the European Central Bank (ECB).