The Asia-Pacific Bank is a universal bank that has been providing a full range of services for more than twenty years to the population and business. Twelve years ago, a commercial institution was known as Amurpromstroybank. The bank was later named the "Asia Pacific Bank", briefly by ATB.
The Asia-Pacific Bank is participating in the deposit insurance system. The commercial bank is confidently one of the first hundred in terms of high financial indicators of banking activities. A network of branches of a credit institution is located in many regions of our country (Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul).
According to reviews, the Asia-Pacific Bank is a major player in the provision of financial services in the Far East.
Changeable weather in the financial market of our country began about two years ago, and since then it has repeatedly risked becoming a full-fledged hurricane. In 2016, it did not take several weeks for citizens not to find out the news about which credit institutions were again deprived of their licenses by the Bank of Russia, how many billions of rubles are the losses from depriving these banks of their licenses, and how the deposit insurance agency is going to return the missing funds deceived investors.
In such a difficult situation, a randomly spoken word addressed to a bank caused an unforeseen reaction of its customers. At some point, the Asia-Pacific Bank came under the sights of the attention of journalists. Conversations and rumors that depositors have problems in order to take deposits from ATB Bank flared up day by day. And all this happened against the backdrop of real growing problems with a commercial bank.
Quick reference
According to reviews, the Asia-Pacific Bank is recognized as one of the largest lending institutions in the Far East.
In November 2016, the General Meeting of ATB Owners decided to change the location of the head office of the credit institution and make the necessary changes to the charter of the credit institution. According to the decision, the head office of the Asia-Pacific Bank will be based in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Prior to this, a commercial bank was based in the city of Blagoveshchensk.
The bank immediately specified that all the main departments will be located in Blagoveshchensk and the capital. At the same time, staff recruitment is possible in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to strengthen the presence of a commercial bank in the selected region.
The main owners are a group of businessmen who own the "PPFIN Region". ATB Activities:
- lending to households and businesses;
- attracting citizens money in deposits;
- activity in the foreign exchange market.
As of April 1 of this year, the institution's indicators:
- net assets - 118.25 billion rubles;
- capital - 9.09 billion;
- active portfolio - 68.20 billion;
- liabilities to investors - 59.86 billion.
Complicated biography
The credit institution has a history of its activities since 1929. Then, in the Amur District, a branch of the "Promstroybank" of the USSR was formed. In February 1992, Amurpromstroybank was registered on the basis of the branch of this bank in the Amur Region. Eight years later, the commercial bank survived its first reorganization due to the unstable financial situation. Then he came under the control of the Agency for the Restructuring of Credit Organizations. Two years after recapitalization, Amurpromstroybank was redeemed again by private individuals. In 2006, the credit institution was renamed the "Asia-Pacific Bank."
After ten years of banking, in 2015, ATB again began to have problems. In the first nine months of 2015, when the Asia-Pacific Bank suffered financial losses in the amount of 1.6 billion rubles. In the next 2016, things seemed to go uphill, so, according to the results of the first half of the year, the profit of a credit institution exceeded one billion rubles. Although in April, Moody's sharply lowered its expert assessments and expectations regarding the bank. According to reviews, the Asia-Pacific Bank reacted immediately and announced the termination of its cooperation with this rating agency. In May, Moody's Investors Service withdrew all of its ratings for a lending institution. It is worth noting that at the time of withdrawal of ratings on long-term deposit scenarios, a negative trend was in effect.
Oil on fire amid actively growing rumors about a possible revocation of the license from the Asia-Pacific Bank was poured by journalists reporting on the connection of the main shareholder of ATB, Andrei Vdovin, with Bank M2M Europe, operating in Latvia. In their opinion, it was this institution that could help an unscrupulous owner withdraw funds of investors abroad. ATB representatives demanded that the media stop distributing unconfirmed information. According to customer reviews, the Asia-Pacific Bank and its press service denied rumors of problems at the credit institution and believed that all publications in the media were only an attempt to provoke a wave of withdrawals by depositors of their funds from the bank. The bank management hoped that the bank would stop the spread of negative information about its economic situation and solve all its problems.
Revocation of a license from M2M Private Bank
In early December 2016, the Bank of Russia withdrew the license for financial transactions from M2M Private Bank. The decision to apply this measure was taken in connection with the improper implementation of laws and regulations by the bank, as well as the inability to cover the claims of creditors on their obligations. M2M Private Bank persistently placed funds of investors in low-quality assets without creating adequate reserves. Due to the poor quality of assets, the bank did not ensure the proper fulfillment of its obligations. It is worth noting that the credit institution was a premium and worked mainly with wealthy private clients. The conditions of the economic crisis began to dictate new requirements for doing business, and all large depositors began to try to diversify their savings by withdrawing part of the funds from the bank. M2M Private Bank began to have difficulties due to the loss of about ten billion rubles of depositors. The Bank of Russia was forced to fulfill its obligation to revoke the institution's license to conduct operations.
M2M Private Bank is not the only bank experiencing difficulties due to shareholder Andrei Vdovin. He was one of those who took part in the bankruptcy of BaikalBank. The most interesting thing is that at that time, BaikalBank was experiencing great financial difficulties. With "Expobank" is also quite an interesting story turned out. When sold to the British bank Barclays, it became almost gold. Expobank British entrepreneurs bought with an abnormal ratio of four to the financial assets of a commercial bank. In world practice, more than one commercial bank in any country in the world has never bought such an expensive ratio in the banking market. As a result of the sale, Petropavlovsk Finance earned several hundred million dollars. The co-owners of the company included Mr. Vdovin. At first, Barclays hired Mr. Vdovin to the board of directors, but then they got rid of him very quickly.
ATB shareholders immediately began discussing with the Bank of Russia a scheme that would allow the credit institution to avoid the huge problems of the Asia-Pacific Bank. The revocation of the license from M2M Private Bank, which is a subsidiary of ATB, forced the latter to reorganize the reserves required by law in the amount of about seven billion rubles.
The KPMG rating agency, in its opinion on the activities of a commercial bank for 2016, wrote that it doubts the possibility of the Asian-Pacific Bank to continue its activities after the creation of reserves. ATB at that time had assets totaling more than eight billion rubles with very unlikely opportunities for their return.
The Asia-Pacific Bank itself noted that an unsuccessful investment in M2M Private Bank has a short-term image effect, and otherwise does not have a special effect on the business of a credit institution. This was evidenced by its economic indicators. In 2016, the bank worked with a profit of 306 million rubles. At the beginning of next year, the credit institution was able to earn 176.3 million. The active portfolio of ATB as of April 1 amounted to 76.3 billion rubles, the volume of deposits of individuals - 71.02 billion.
Preventive action
It is worth noting that in order to avoid possible liquidity problems, the Asia-Pacific Bank, which owns a stake in the credit organization M2M Private Bank, was forbidden to continue lending to its subsidiary back in October. The Bank of Russia gave these instructions in order to maintain the stability of ATB.
Despite agency ratings, the Asia-Pacific Bank continued to grow rapidly. As part of the rebranding, the credit institution was rapidly updating its offices: Krasnoyarsk, Ulan-Ude, Barnaul. According to reviews of the Asia-Pacific Bank, this process had a positive effect on the image of the bank and should have been completed next year. ATB constantly offered customers new banking products. For example, eight types of deposits were available to individuals, the highest interest rate on one of them being 10.2 percent. ATB never lifted rates up, which indicates the stability of the credit structure. A lending institution has always maintained a personal approach when working with corporate structures, combining affordable interest rates with other attractive conditions (long loan periods, individual repayment schedules, and much more).
Installment plan
The Bank of Russia demanded that ATB create 100% reserves on loans provided by M2M Private Bank. The Asia-Pacific Bank was to extract working capital in the amount of 5.1 billion rubles and place them on an account with the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. The main regulator, in order to avoid huge liquidity problems at ATB as a result of fulfilling the presented requirements, granted the credit institution an installment plan until the end of last year. Unfortunately, by the end of the installment plan that the Bank of Russia had provided to ATB for reserving the loan granted to M2M Private Bank, which had lost its license, the Asia-Pacific Bank did not manage to fulfill the requirements of the regulator. The bank managed to create reserves for approximately eighty percent of the loan. In early 2018, the problems of the Asia-Pacific Bank forced to ask the CBR to extend the installment plan. Fortunately for everyone, the Bank of Russia agreed to comply with ATB’s request and gave it the opportunity to reserve a M2M Private Bank loan by early April of this year. The creation of a 100% reserve, according to the latest news, ATB Bank will inevitably force to replenish its capital, which, in fact, insists the main regulator.
Change of Shareholder Requirement
Another requirement of the Bank of Russia, according to reviews of employees of the Asia-Pacific Bank, is to change shareholders. One of the largest owners of the credit institution was Andrei Vdovin, who until recently was a co-owner of the Alphabet of Taste. The instruction of the main regulator sent by ATB after the revocation of the license from M2M Private Bank was to reduce the share of Andrey Vdovin to a threshold of ten percent.
According to the reviews of the employees of the Asia-Pacific Bank, the institution met the requirement of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation formally. Former shareholders of the lending institution retained influence in the bank through the company "PPFIN Region", reducing their stake to 8.24 percent. Prior to the claims made by the Bank of Russia, three leading owners (Vdovin, Maslovsky and Hambro) each owned 22.5 percent of the shares of ATB, respectively.
Formally, at the end of last year, new people appeared on the list of shareholders of the Asia-Pacific Bank. For example, a certain Maxim Chernavin, closely connected by business relations with Andrei Vdovin. Mr. Chernavin, until recently, was an expert at Bank M2M Europe, owned by Andrei Vdovin. Bank M2M, which operated in Latvia last year, was sold and renamed Signet Bank AS. Now Maxim Chernavin owns about a third of the shares of Shelmer Holding Ltd, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
As a result of meeting the requirements of the regulator to solve all current problems in 2018, the Asia-Pacific Bank had the following shareholder structure:
- "Shelmer Holding Ltd." - 31.81% (the main owner is Maxim Chernavin);
- "International Finance Corporation" - 10%;
- Epic Vision;
- PPFIN Region (the main owner is Andrey Vdovin) - 8.24%.
According to reviews of the Asia-Pacific Bank, the credit institution has been trying to find a new investor all last year, but, unfortunately, to no avail. ATB representatives continue to declare to media representatives that the structure of the bank’s shareholders has been brought into line with the requirements of the Bank of Russia and the reservation for M2M Private Bank loans has been made in full compliance with the requirements of the main regulator. The owners insist that today the problems of ATB Bank are resolved, and the credit institution conducts its business as usual.
Inevitable Remediation
The latest news about ATB confirms that, having waited for the time when the credit institution created one hundred percent reserve according to the schedule agreed with the Bank of Russia, the regulator made a mixed decision for many to reorganize the bank. The management of the Asia-Pacific Bank has done a very difficult job of collecting more than five billion rubles, not counting other reserves placed on the correspondent account with the main banking regulator. After which the entire composition of the leaders was removed and a provisional administration was introduced instead.
According to customer reviews, the Asia-Pacific Bank has not been deprived of a license due to deposits of the population totaling more than sixty billion rubles. The losses of depositors would have to be covered by the DIA. In anticipation of the inauguration of the president of our country and the upcoming personnel changes in the highest echelons of power, such costs at the state level seemed to the Bank of Russia inappropriate, as well as unrest among the population of the eastern part of the country.
There is another suggestion why the news about the closure of ATB Bank in 2018 will remain false. The crisis situation with ATB in case of its negative resolution will bring many problems for the economy of the Far East. Judging by the customer reviews on loans from the Asia-Pacific Bank, the credit institution is actively providing loans on favorable terms to small and medium-sized enterprises. The termination of such a large bank in the region will create problems with financing of several sectors of the economy (for example, construction). According to reviews of branches of the Asia-Pacific Bank, several thousand banking specialists work in them. The closure of the credit institution will lead to a huge outflow of specialists to the labor market due to a reduction in bank personnel. Only in the large city of Krasnoyarsk, according to reviews of the Asia-Pacific Bank, there are currently eleven branches.
The Bank of Russia also confirmed that it had decided to sanitize the Asia-Pacific Bank, primarily because of its social significance for the two economic zones of our country, the Far East and Eastern Siberia.
ATB is one of the main socially significant commercial banks in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. In view of the importance for social development in the main regions of presence, the termination of the activity of a credit institution or the disruption of the continuity of its banking activities would have extremely negative consequences for the stable financial system of such vast regions.
In addition, the Bank of Russia will confirm that in case of significant liquidity problems, the Asia-Pacific Bank will provide it with urgent financial assistance using the funds of the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund of our country.
The Central Bank of the Russian Federation noted that ATB continues its activities as usual, fulfilling its current obligations and making transactions.
Depositor withdrawal channel
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Not so long ago, the Tver court in Moscow issued an absentee decision on the arrest of one of the main shareholders of ATB, Andrei Vdovin, who clearly caused a lot of questions from the main regulator. The banker is charged with especially large-scale fraud, namely the theft of thirteen million dollars. Mr. Vdovin himself left the territory of our country and, apparently, does not intend to return. He is wanted at the federal and international level. Andrei Vdovin’s homeland has many creditors who wish to receive the funds taken from them, among them, for example, BaikalBank, where a banker issued a loan of two hundred million rubles. Today, ATB Bank solves problems with a license without the participation of its once main shareholder.
Filing a request for the absentee arrest of Mr. Vdovin, a representative of the investigating authority said that the accused was currently wanted. Investigators made repeated attempts to ensure the appearance of Mr. Vdovin in the investigating authorities, but they, unfortunately, were unsuccessful. It was found that the banker left the country last year and is no longer going to return to his homeland, where creditors and investigative agencies are waiting for him. According to the representative of the law, being abroad, Andrei Vdovin seeks to establish contact with accomplices in the crime and develop a common position with them in court.
The banker's lawyer emphasized that the criminal offense incriminated to Andrei Vdovin should be qualified as an economic crime, and asked that any measure of restraint be taken for the defendant except imprisonment. The decision to put the banker on the wanted list was also appealed by lawyers in court.
Appeal
The lawyers of the co-owner of ATB Mr. Vdovin appealed the decision of the Tverskoy court of the capital on the election of a thirteen million dollars arrest in absentia in the form of an absentee arrest in a criminal case on fraud.
Systemically important bank in the Far East
It is worth noting a very important feature of the development of the financial sector in our country. There are fewer large banks in the regions of the country. Now there is an active process of consolidation of credit institutions, state-owned banks occupy an increasing share in the banking market. The disadvantage of large banks is that they can not always provide decent financing to regional small businesses, because they do not know all the needs and characteristics of local businesses in the regions. According to reviews of the Asia-Pacific Bank, it successfully performs this difficult task in the Far East.
According to the NRA, it is state-owned banks that receive almost one hundred percent of the banking sector's profits, and these credit institutions focus on lending to large institutions. This, in turn, impedes the solution of one of the main tasks facing our country today, namely, increasing the share of small and medium-sized enterprises in the state’s GDP. Small businesses in the regions are in dire need of strong support from regional banks, as they are very familiar with the needs and requirements of their local businessmen. According to reviews of loans at the Asia-Pacific Bank, the credit institution is actively providing loans to enterprises in the Far East. We can say that ATB is a system-forming bank for this region. Unlike major players in the banking market, regional lending institutions work with their clients side by side, without bureaucratic delays. Very often, such banks operate in the farthest cities of the region, where state-owned banks simply cannot or do not want to get. In the territories of its presence, ATB occupies a major market share and is included in the number of leaders after such major players as Sberbank and VTB. In Chukotka, ATB commercial bank is recognized as the undisputed leader.
Another of the regions where there are strong regional banks is Tatarstan. Not so long ago it was Tatfondbank, but it lost the license of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Now the game has remained “Ak Bars”.
Summary
Improvement of the country's financial sector continues and will continue. According to the head of the Bank of Russia, Mrs. Nabiullina, it will come to an end no earlier than in a couple of years. Due to such a brutal purge among credit institutions, the Bank of Russia is often criticized. The difficulty is that in most cases commercial structures that conduct illegal operations or carry out inappropriate credit policies, that is, actually risk the funds of depositors on a daily basis, cease their activities. At the same time, bankruptcies of four out of five banks that lost their licenses are of a criminal nature for the illegal withdrawal of population money abroad.
The Bank of Russia is trying to the last to save credit institutions in situations where this is possible and appropriate. It was not possible to find funds, in particular, for the rehabilitation of Tatfondbank, but the successful Ak Bars remained in the region. The main regulator always tries to preserve systemically important regional banks. And as a result, it solves the problems of a credit institution. There is no problem taking a deposit from ATB Bank now, this can be done without difficulties. Each depositor has the right to independently decide whether to trust the bank or not. The latest news about ATB Bank today does not indicate an influx of citizens into the institution’s branches.