Most of Cyprus' banks to reopen Thursday

All banks in Cyprus except the two largest will reopen for business Thursday -- 12 days after they shut down to prevent a run by customers -- now that the country has clinched a vital bailout deal.

Earlier in the day, officials had said banks could reopen by Tuesday, but the finance minister decided to order them shut until Thursday.

The central bank will impose some limits on financial transactions, the country's president, Nicos Anastasiades, said. He assured the public that restrictions would be temporary.

The decision that banks would reopen Thursday came after an 11th-hour deal to provide Cyprus with an international bailout was clinched in the early hours Monday in a Brussels meeting between the 17-nation eurozone's finance ministers.

All banks across the country had been shut down since March 16 while politicians set up the plan to secure funding for the bailout, after lawmakers rejected an initial scheme that would have seized up to 10 percent of people's accounts.

Politicians from Europe and Cyprus had been up against a tight deadline. The European Central Bank had only agreed to extend emergency funding to the country's ailing banks until Monday unless an agreement was reached. Without a deal, the banks would have collapsed Tuesday, dragging the country's economy down with them and potentially pushing it out of the 17-nation eurozone.

After the deal was announced, ECB dropped its threat, saying it "decided not to object" to the Central Bank of Cyprus continuing to provide emergency credit.

Cyprus agreed to slash its oversized banking sector and inflict hefty losses on large depositors in troubled banks to secure the 10-billion euro ($13 billion) bailout.

Speaking about the marathon 10-hour negotiations in Brussels that resulted in the deal, Anastasiades said that "the hours were difficult, at some moments dramatic. Cyprus found itself a breath away from economic collapse."

As part of the reopening process, a central bank official said Laiki bank will be restructured. For Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, a withdrawal limit from their ATMs of 100 euros ($130) a day will also remain in place until Thursday, the official said earlier in the day. -- AP