Banker's Day

VEB allocates money to financial institutions

The Supervisory Board of the state corporation Development Bank (Vnesheconombank) yesterday recommended issuing subordinated loans to the first three private banks for a total of 18.3 billion rubles. In addition, VTB Group will receive $712.5 million from VEB to refinance its external debt. Until now, the Development Bank has allocated funds for these needs only to companies.

At the same time, VEB expects that the state will replenish its capital by “several hundred billion rubles” thanks to the functions that fell to the bank in connection with its role in stabilizing the economy. According to VEB Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev, the issue of increasing the bank's capital was brought up for discussion yesterday. “I don’t want to name specific parameters - they still have to be agreed upon with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation,” he said. “We expect that we will be talking about several hundred billion rubles.”

Alfa Bank received the most government money - 11.9 billion rubles, Nomos Bank was allocated 4.5 billion rubles, Khanty-Mansiysk Bank - 1.9 billion rubles. Banks will be required to use these funds, allocated as subordinated loans, to lend to priority sectors of the economy, in particular small and medium-sized businesses, trade, real estate, etc. “These banks work with both retail and corporate clients, which are also noticeable in the regional context, in particular we are talking about the Khanty-Mansiysk Bank,” Mr. Dmitriev said yesterday. According to him, these funds are allocated subject to co-financing in the same amount from the shareholders of these banks. Earlier, the head of VEB stated that the Development Bank received more than 60 applications for subloans in the amount of 98 billion rubles. According to Mr. Dmitriev, of these requests, only 27 applications amounted to about 40 billion rubles. properly formatted. As you know, previously three state banks received such loans - VTB, Sberbank and Rosselkhozbank .

In addition, the supervisory board decided to allocate a loan to VTB to refinance external debt. VTB became the first bank to which VEB will provide a loan to repay foreign debts. Previously, Vnesheconombank allocated funds only to Russian companies. VTB will receive $712.5 million, that is, 75% of the total debt that needs to be refinanced by the end of the year. To repay the remaining amount ($237.5 million), the bank will use its own funds. As VTB President Andrey Kostin previously stated, in 2009 the banking group's external debt will amount to about $8 billion.

“This is the third meeting of the supervisory board, at which issues of refinancing the external debt of Russian companies and banks are being considered,” Mr. Dmitriev recalled yesterday. In total, VEB decided to refinance external debts for $9.8 billion, of which $7.5 billion has already been allocated to companies. “In the near future, we expect the transfer of funds for a number of transactions on which positive decisions have been made. In total, applications for refinancing from banks and companies amounted to $78 billion, of which $28 billion came from banks and about 50 billion from companies,” he said.

As Mr. Dmitriev said, yesterday the council discussed applications from natural monopolies. “It was decided that these applications should be considered in the context of the implementation of their investment programs by the largest state companies,” says Mr. Dmitriev. “Decisions that will ultimately be made regarding refinancing should be based on the need to implement investment programs by state-owned companies.” He did not rule out the possibility that VEB may reconsider decisions on allocating funds to already approved but not yet financed projects.

By mid-2009, Vnesheconombank will present a concept for the activities of its subsidiary banks with the prospect of merging them. “The Russian Development Bank, Globex-Bank and Svyaz-Bank - they beg the question of consolidation and the creation of a large financial structure on their basis,” said the head of VEB, Mr. Dmitriev, yesterday. According to him, for the first time this structure will be a subsidiary bank of VEB, “then the supervisory board will decide what to do next - corporatization or something else.” He also did not rule out the possibility of creating a postal bank similar to the structure that operates in Germany (the national postal system, which has a banking system). license). This development option is currently being studied by RIA Novosti .

Ivan GORDEEV