Black list of banks of Russia

Over the past six months, the Russian banking community has been feverish: one of the main topics for discussion was the banks on the blacklist. What is this list and how does the organization threaten to get into such lists?

The first black list of banks appeared almost 10 years ago, namely in the summer of 2004. Then the Central Bank conducted one of its first global companies to "clean up" domestic banking from unscrupulous players. The blacklisting in the network provoked an increase in mutual distrust in the interbank loans market, which led to the loss of liquidity by several small and medium-sized banks. As a result, several organizations lost their licenses, but the regulator managed to keep the situation under control and prevent avalanche of bankruptcies.

Fruit of imagination

In mid-November 2013, there was a first wave of rumors and insinuations about the stability of some credit institutions. Head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina in all interviews denied such information and, without restraint, repeated that the regulator does not compile any stop-sheets. The same position was held by the Association of Russian Banks, which refused to recognize the existence of blacklists.

The management of the Central Bank and the ARB explains the appearance of such information by the facts of unfair competition in the banking sector, a possible response from the large clients of banks conducting money-laundering operations, as well as the desire of some large borrowers not to return large loans they took after revoking licenses.

Winter-2014: time to lose banks

The explanatory work produced certain results, but the majority of Russians every morning started by looking for information about which banks appear on the black list at the current date. Despite the current deposit insurance system, some investors preferred to withdraw their savings from potentially problematic organizations. Heads of firms that have settlement accounts with banks that have fallen into the replicated lists, also preferred to withdraw cash from them.

Soon many bankers, remembering the well-known saying that money loves silence, stopped commenting on the topic of black lists altogether. If journalists could get information on this issue, then it was very stingy and contradictory.

The general rhetoric of specialists was reduced to the classical expression: "Let's live - we'll see." In particular, Igor Ilyukhin, the spokesman for SMP Bank, in an interview with Bankir.ru reported that he personally has 3 black lists, which include, among other things, an organization with license No. 1481, that is, Sberbank Russia. "

A little bit about the veracity of the information

It should be noted that some banks listed in the black list have subsequently lost their license. One such list, containing 48 organizations, was promulgated on December 4, 2013. From that moment until the end of the first quarter of 2014, licenses were withdrawn from 12 banks that were on the list. Among the "untimely dead":

• December 2013 - "Project Finance Bank", "Investbank", "MAST-Bank", "Smolensky", "Askold".
• January 2014 - "My Bank".
• February 2014 - "Link-Bank", "Eurotrust."
• March 2014 - "Russian Land Bank", "Monolith", "Sovinkom", "EnergoBusiness".

Thus, the information on the poor financial situation and the possibility of revoking the license for a quarter of the credit organizations from the black list were confirmed in just four months. It is possible that the aforementioned black list of Russian banks was drawn up on the basis of insider information available to its authors. It is possible that it was the result of a thorough analysis of the basic performance indicators of fifty domestic credit institutions. In this case, one can only admire the amount of work done and the validity of the conclusions drawn.

Organization of supervision over the activities of banks ...

The Central Bank (under Federal Law No. 86-FZ) oversees banks, their financial and lending policies, and monitors the dubious operations of the organization and its clients. In accordance with the requirements of the regulator, all banks send to the Central Bank a report on the transactions made, and do so on time and on a regular basis.

The Central Bank regularly checks all credit institutions. Moreover, a comprehensive audit of any bank is made at least once every 3 years. In the course of this check, the size and structure of the assets and liabilities of the credit institution, the special coefficients characterizing its stability are carefully analyzed. In addition to the integrated, there are also thematic checks, which sometimes happen several times a year.

In addition to the supervision of the Central Bank, Rosfinmonitoring - in the framework of fulfilling the requirements of the law 115-FZ - receives tens of thousands of messages from banks every day about their operations that may be of questionable nature. It is not entirely clear what purpose all these pieces of information are collected if it does not further facilitate the adoption of adequate measures to credit institutions that violate the requirements of the law.

... and its results

There is an opinion that the banks that are on the black list, for a number of reasons are at the Central Bank on special control. Indeed, the real financial position of each particular bank is for the regulator's specialists quite transparent and understandable. In this case, it is impossible to change it in any significant way in a short time. It is possible that, based on the information received, the Central Bank may well compile its own black list of banks, which usually fall into organizations that need to strengthen supervision of their activities.

The Central Bank has a whole set of tools that help improve the performance of the credit institution and prevent its bankruptcy, with the withdrawal of a banking license - this is the most extreme measure. Consequently, each such case is a defect of the specialists of the territorial directorates of the "Central Bank".

As a result, the main reasons that led to the revocation of licenses from most banks, the Central Bank calls providing unreliable reporting, high-risk credit policies, as well as non-compliance with regulatory acts governing their activities.

Predictable actions of unpredictable investors

It should be noted that the widely publicized black list of banks (2014) by its appearance contributed to increased unfair competition. In particular, employees of some leading credit institutions urged their clients to transfer money from banks allegedly on the list for revocation of the license.

The regulator's unwillingness to answer the question of how to find out the black list of banks, as well as the lack of reliable information about the real situation of credit institutions that got into it, led to a massive transfer of deposits of citizens to banks with state participation. Only for the IV quarter of 2013 the volume of deposits of citizens in the "Savings Bank" increased by 7.8%, in the bank "VTB" - by 4.7%.

Criteria for assessing the significance

Whether there were any specific banks in the Central Bank's black list, or it was another inspired company to clear the market from competitors, is no longer so important. But the compilation of the "white" list has already been officially announced.

At the end of 2013, the Central Bank developed criteria, according to which the so-called systemically important banks will be determined. The main criteria proposed to consider the size of assets, activities in the interbank market (separately - as a lender and as a borrower), as well as the amount of private deposits.

On the basis of these indicators, a calculated "generalizing result" is derived, the value of which indicates the degree of significance of the bank for the Russian banking system. The annual list will include those credit institutions whose "aggregating result" will exceed 0.6.

"White list

The main contenders for the list of systemically important credit institutions will be state-owned banks: Sberbank, VTB, Rosselkhozbank, Gazprombank and others. The list could include such large private banks as Alfa-Bank, Promsvyazbank, NOMOS Bank, and Bank of Moscow. Obviously, the presence on the "white" list makes it easier for the credit institution to access government resources, in particular, obtaining loans from the Central Bank and participating in auctions for the right to place deposits of state companies and state corporations.

On the other hand, falling into such a list means the regulator's increased attention to the operations conducted by the organizations. There is an opinion that some private banks will prefer to reduce their business activity somewhat, in order to avoid too close attention of the Central Bank.

New requirements for the reliability of banks working with public funds

At the end of March this year it became known that the Ministry of Finance and the Government of the Russian Federation intend to revise the list of banks in which state corporations will be allowed to allocate their funds in the future. According to the draft developed by the Bank of Russia, state-owned companies will be able to place temporarily free money only in those organizations whose long-term rating will be no lower than BBB (according to Fitch or Standard & Poor's) or Baa3 (according to Moody's) in accordance with the terms of placed deposits.

Russian bankers reacted to the innovation with little enthusiasm, seeing in it another company with the goal of replenishing the unofficial black list of banks by credit institutions that for certain reasons did not have ratings from these agencies. The general opinion of the banking community was expressed in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper by FBK representative Roman Koenigsberg. According to him, the idea of placing state funds in reliable banks is generally sound and correct, but the use of international ratings as the main evaluation criterion is largely controversial.

Features of rating compilation

The long-term rating of the agencies making up the "big three" has only 78 domestic banks. And international ratings are largely subjective, they take into account the foreign policy situation, rather than the real state of affairs in the credit organization. Agencies - under the pressure of certain Western structures - can at any time withdraw their assigned ratings, which will entail considerable difficulties for Russian banks participating in state programs.

The planned tightening of the requirements for ratings of credit institutions should lead to a reduction in the number of participants in deposit auctions by about one and a half times. According to some expert estimates, about three dozen banks will eventually be admitted to such auctions. It is clear that organizations that have dropped out of the struggle for state resources will automatically compose a new "Black List of Banks-2014".

What's next?

In the second quarter of 2014, according to experts' forecasts, the pace of "mopping-up" of the banking market will decrease somewhat, but work to identify problem organizations will continue. For example, on April 17, another two regional banks were deprived of licenses: Dagestan Caspian and Bashkir AF Bank. It should be noted that these credit organizations were not included in the black list of banks, as they occupied low ratings in the ratings, and the main problems began only in 2014. According to some expert estimates, during 2014 about fifty banks will lose their licenses.