Often, small commercial banks, and often quite large “players,” become bankrupt. At the same time, the fate of most of them adheres to the same scenario: problems with payments on deposits, revocation of a license, introduction of a provisional administration, litigation and the announcement of financial insolvency. A similar path was prepared for such a credit institution as Nota Bank. The feedback from the employees of this organization will make it possible to understand how realistic it was to prevent disaster in the early stages and whether the bank itself could be saved.
Briefly about the bank itself
The history of the creation of this financial organization begins in mid-1994 in Tyumen. True, it was originally called the Tyumen Regional Development Bank. Exactly 3 years later, representatives of the bank decided to change the name, and it was renamed “White North”.
But even after the name change, the owners of the organization did not sit still. Either they realized that they could not continue to support the bank afloat, or they came across a better offer. In a word, they decided in 2002 to sell the future Nota Bank. Moscow has become a new place where the organization’s office was moved after the change of ownership.
2 years after the official sale of the organization, the new owners changed their name again and gave the modern Nota Bank to the hands of a team of specialists led by Dmitry Erokhin. Later, the company had its own branches, several representative offices, terminals and points of sale. Everyone could safely contact Nota Bank. Problems with a financial organization arose much later. Until this time, the bank faithfully served individuals and legal entities, offering them loans, deposits and other financial services.
What do former bank employees think?
In order to understand how it all began, you need to pay attention to the opinions and reviews of Nota Bank employees. As many managers who once worked in such an institution say, it all started very well. Initially, Nota Bank had a small but very friendly team. Then the number of employees increased. Many managers present in the institution since its opening, went on the rise.
The bank has a bonus system for employees. According to some employee reviews, Nota Bank regularly encouraged the best people. They received bonuses in the form of bonuses, time off, unscheduled leave, as well as the long-awaited career growth. Then, when the leadership changed, and Erokhin’s group came to power, the situation deteriorated sharply.
According to a few staff reviews, Nota Bank has become completely unrecognizable. There was a certain split of personnel. Some employees became close to the new manager, while others, on the contrary, pulled away and kept apart.
The system of fines appeared in the team, and the bonus program was sharply reduced. As a result of the tough policy of the new manager in the representative office in such a credit organization a staff turnover has arisen. According to the stories of bank employees, new people came, but did not linger for a long time. And then problems with payments began to arise. “Nota-Bank” began to delay the salary of its own employees. And then it started: financial problems, license revocation and further on the list.
What did the organization’s clients say about the features of its work?
Long before the organization had problems, Nota Bank already had a not very good reputation. According to some users, in such a credit institution there was an extreme lack of assembly, incompetence and a certain tactlessness on the part of its own specialists.
Customers often complained of a terrible mess with interest on deposits. According to their stories, it becomes clear that at the time of the conclusion of the contract they had one rate, later it changed (of course, in the direction of its decrease). Sometimes there were failures in the bank's program and interest was not charged at all. Payments were delayed irregularly. Nota Bank did not pay earned interest on deposits on time.
Many clients complained about the incompetence and incorrect behavior of employees of certain bank representative offices. Either they were served for too long, then they lost documents or did not have information at all for each specific case. There were also positive reviews. In them, users talked about successfully closed deposits, interest received and quality service. These are the controversial opinions aroused by Nota Bank users. The license at that time had not yet been revoked. An unpleasant phenomenon happened to the organization a little later.
The first swallows of financial problems
Officially, the financial instability of the organization began in early October 2015. At this time, information about the bank's monetary problems began to appear in many media and some professional communities. The first difficulties with remittances arose for many legal entities on October 5. And although the license had not yet been revoked, Nota Bank was already mentally preparing for this event. But, despite the clear preconditions for future bankruptcy, the financial institution denied information about the delay in payments.
How did further events unfold in the bankruptcy case?
However, already on October 12, restrictions on cash withdrawals by cards were set in all branches of this financial institution. The size of the limit at that time amounted to 10 thousand rubles per day. Along with this, information appeared about disconnecting a credit institution from the Bank of Russia electronic payment system.
And on October 13, a provisional administration was appointed at Nota Bank for up to six months. As a rule, during this time the company either fully recovered and announced its reorganization, or declared its complete insolvency.
But, alas, a miracle did not happen. Very soon, most media representatives reported a license revocation. Nota Bank remained in the power of the interim administration and officially lost its license.
License revocation and its reasons
According to the regulator, the Nota Bank license was revoked for several reasons at once. The main one is the problem with the liquidity of the balance sheet and the emergence of a large number of unpaid and unconfirmed documents. According to the regulator, payment of bills has not been carried out since October 5, 2015.
Moreover, before receiving official data that the bank had serious problems with its liquidity, many customers began to transfer their funds to other financial organizations and massively refuse Nota Bank services. But even despite a certain outflow of customers, the total amount of debt to legal entities at the bankrupt bank did not decrease too much. According to some reports, at that time it amounted to about 16 billion rubles.
hope dies last
Until the very last moment, representatives of the Central Bank hoped that the bank would still have forces and investors who could restore the hole in the balance sheet and rehabilitate Nota Bank. The interim administration, introduced by the regulator for a six-month period, also counted on this. However, the expectations did not materialize.
Starting October 13, the regulator introduced a moratorium on all payment transactions performed by the bank. At the same time, it was planned to begin compensatory payments to legal entities and individuals, and no later than two weeks from the date of the moratorium.
Detection of doubtful bank guarantees
6 months after the introduction of the provisional administration, representatives of the regulator's commission discovered an unpleasant fact of fraud. As it turned out, the bankrupt bank issued false guarantees, with tens of billions. One of the organization’s outraged customers was the famous construction company Mostotrest.
Representatives of this company filed a statement with the prosecutor. Not so long ago, the plaintiff turned to the bank for guarantees. At that time, the amount was about 2.25 billion rubles. Nota Bank gladly agreed to issue such guarantees. But subject to the deposit of 1.5 billion rubles on the deposit of a credit institution, and at 8% per annum. As the guarantor in the person of the bank, the former chairman of the board of the financial organization Dmitry Erokhin acted. However, the client was not able to withdraw his deposit and wait for the bank to fulfill its obligations.
And then a criminal case was opened under the article “Fraud on a particularly large scale”. During the investigation, law enforcement officials still managed to detain the former head of the bank, Dmitry Erokhin, as well as his brother Vadim, as well as Galina Marchukova, the ex-financial director of Nota Bank.