Over the past six months, the Russian banking community has been in a fever: one of the main topics for discussion was banks on the black list. What is this list and what threatens organizations from getting into lists of this kind?
The first black list of banks appeared almost 10 years ago, namely in the summer of 2004. Then the Central Bank held one of its first global companies to “clean up” domestic banking from unscrupulous players. Blacklisting on the net provoked an increase in mutual distrust in the interbank loan market, which led to a 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 an avalanche of bankruptcies.
Fantasy fruit
In mid-November 2013, the first wave of rumors and insinuations about the stability of some credit organizations took place. The head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, in all interviews, denied such information and, without getting tired, repeated that the regulator is not involved in the preparation of any stop lists. The Association of Russian Banks, which refused to acknowledge the existence of blacklists, held the same position.
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, the possible response from large customers of banks engaged in money laundering operations, and the desire of some large borrowers not to repay large loans they took after revoking licenses.
Winter 2014: time to lose banks
The explanatory work carried out yielded certain results, but most Russians every morning started by looking for information about which banks are on the black list on the current date. Despite the current deposit insurance system, some investors chose to take their savings from potentially troubled organizations. The heads of firms with settlement accounts in banks included in the replicated lists also preferred to withdraw funds from them.
Soon, many bankers, recalling the famous saying that money loves silence, generally ceased to comment on the topic of black lists. If journalists managed to get information on this issue, then it was very mean and contradictory.
The general rhetoric of experts came down to the classic expression: "We'll wait and see." In particular, the press secretary of SMP Bank Igor Ilyukhin, in an interview with Bankir.ru portal, said that he personally has 3 black lists, which include, among other things, an organization with license No. 1481, that is, Sberbank Of Russia. "
A bit about the veracity of information
It should be noted that some banks, blacklisted, subsequently really lost their license. One of these lists, containing 48 organizations, was released on December 4, 2013. From this moment until the end of the first quarter of 2014, licenses of 12 banks on the list were revoked. Among the "untimely departed":
- 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, EnergoBiznes.
Thus, information about the poor financial situation and the possibility of revoking a license for a quarter of credit organizations from the black list was confirmed in just four months. It is possible that the aforementioned black list of Russian banks was compiled on the basis of insider information available to its authors. It is possible that it was the result of a thorough analysis of the main performance indicators of fifty of domestic credit organizations. In this case, one can only admire the amount of work done and the validity of the conclusions made.
Organization of supervision of banks ...
The Central Bank (within the framework of federal law No. 86-FZ) supervises banks, their financial and credit policies, and also monitors the dubious operations of the organization and its customers. In accordance with the requirements of the regulator, all banks send reports on operations performed to the Central Bank, and they do this on time and on an ongoing basis.
The Central Bank regularly checks all credit organizations. Moreover, a comprehensive check of any bank is carried out at least once every 3 years. In the course of this audit, the size and structure of the assets and liabilities of the credit institution, as well as special factors characterizing its stability, are carefully analyzed. In addition to the comprehensive, there are also thematic checks, which sometimes happen several times a year.
In addition to the supervision of the Central Bank, Rosfinmonitoring, as part of the fulfillment of the requirements of Law 115-FZ, receives tens of thousands of reports from banks daily about their operations, which may be of a dubious nature. It is not entirely clear why all these piles of information are being collected if it subsequently does not contribute to the adoption of adequate measures to credit organizations that violate the requirements of the law.
... and its results
There is an opinion that banks that are on the black list, for a number of reasons, are under special control of the Central Bank. Indeed, the real financial situation of each particular bank is quite transparent and understandable for the regulator’s specialists. However, it is impossible to change it in any significant way in a short time. It is quite possible that, on the basis of the information received, the Central Bank may well draw up its own black list of banks, which usually includes organizations that need to strengthen supervision of their activities.
The Central Bank has a whole range of tools that help improve the performance of a credit institution and prevent its bankruptcy, and the revocation of a banking license is the most extreme measure. Therefore, each such case is a flaw in the specialists of the territorial administrations of the Central Bank.
As a result, the main reasons that led to the revocation of the license from most banks, the Central Bank calls the provision of inaccurate reporting, pursuing a high-risk credit policy, as well as their failure to comply with regulations governing their activities.
Predictable actions by unpredictable contributors
It should be noted that the widely publicized black list of banks (2014), by their appearance, contributed to the intensification of unfair competition. In particular, employees of some leading lending institutions urged their clients to transfer funds from banks allegedly on the list of license withdrawals.
The regulator’s reluctance 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 organizations that got into it, led to a massive transfer of citizens' deposits to banks with state participation. In the fourth quarter of 2013 alone, the volume of citizens' deposits in Sberbank increased by 7.8%, in VTB Bank - by 4.7%.
Significance Criteria
Whether any specific banks were on the Central Bank’s blacklist, or was it another inspirational company to clear the market from competitors, is now not so important. But the compilation of a "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 creditor and as a borrower), as well as the volume of private deposits.
Based on these indicators, a calculated “summary result” is derived, the value of which shows the degree of importance of the bank for the Russian banking system. The annual list will include those credit organizations whose "summary result" will exceed 0.6.
"White list
The main applicants for a place in the list of systemically important credit organizations will be state banks: Sberbank, VTB, Russian Agricultural Bank, Gazprombank and others. The list may include such major private banks as Alfa-Bank, Promsvyazbank, NOMOS Bank, Bank of Moscow. Obviously, the presence in the white list makes it easier for a credit institution to have access to state resources, in particular, obtaining loans from the Central Bank and participating in auctions for the right to place deposits with state-owned companies and state corporations.
On the other hand, getting into such a list means increased attention of the regulator to the operations carried out by organizations. There is an opinion that some private banks will prefer to slightly reduce business activity in order to get away from the too close attention of the Central Bank.
New requirements for the reliability of banks working with state 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 place their funds in the future. According to the project 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 not be lower than BBB (according to Fitch or Standard & Poor's), or Baa3 (according to Moody's) in accordance with the terms of deposits placed.
Russian bankers reacted to the innovation without much enthusiasm, seeing it as another company aimed at adding to the unofficial black list of banks by credit organizations that for some reason do not have ratings from these agencies. The general opinion of the banking community was expressed in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper by the representative of FBK Roman Koenigsberg. According to him, the idea of ​​placing government funds in reliable banks is generally sound and correct, but the use of international ratings as the main evaluation criterion is largely controversial.
Rating Features
The long-term rating of the agencies that make up the "Big Three" has only 78 domestic banks. Moreover, international ratings are largely subjective, they take into account the foreign policy situation to a greater extent, rather than the real situation in a credit institution. Agencies - under the pressure of certain Western structures - can withdraw their ratings at any time, which will entail significant difficulties for Russian banks participating in government programs.
The planned tightening of the requirements for ratings of credit organizations 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 allowed to participate in such auctions. It is clear that organizations that have dropped out of the struggle for state resources will automatically draw up a new “Black List of Banks 2014”.
What's next?
In the second quarter of 2014, according to experts, the pace of “sweeping” the banking market will slow down somewhat, but work to identify problematic organizations will continue. For example, on April 17, another 2 regional banks lost their license: the Dagestan "Caspian" and the Bashkir "AF Bank". It should be noted that these credit organizations were not included in the black list of banks, since they occupied low lines in the ratings, and the main problems they started only in 2014. According to some expert estimates, during 2014 about fifty banks will lose their licenses.