| During this time, the deposit insurance fund will grow to 70 billion rubles Alexander Turbanov yesterday held his first press conference as head of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). This event was preceded by another discussion about the viability of the insurance system being created. Mr. Turbanov reported how his new department intends to form and invest the funds of the insurance fund - the main source of compensation for bank deposits. It turned out that for the DIA to fully form this piggy bank, it will take at least 10 years, during which Russian banks and the Central Bank must avoid serious systemic crises. Experts believe that even more time will be needed.
The new agency and the Central Bank face an obvious task - to prove the need for deposit insurance, the law on which was adopted at the end of last year. On Tuesday evening, the second meeting of the agency’s board of directors was held , and a few hours before, Boris Fedorov, a member of the supervisory board of Sberbank, said about the insurance system: “Today it is an unnecessary bureaucratic structure that will significantly influence the activities of Russian banks.” Whether the system is needed or not will become clear quite soon - based on the dynamics of the influx of deposits into banks - another question is whether this system will be sustainable. Analysts have repeatedly expressed doubts on this score, and so far the doubts have not disappeared.
The Deposit Insurance Fund, to which Mr. Turbanov dedicated his press conference, will be formed through a contribution from the state (2 billion rubles) and regular contributions from banks. According to the head of the DIA, banks will annually contribute 0.6% of the account balances of individuals to the fund. This is the maximum rate allowed by law. “It was established due to the fact that the deposit insurance fund is starting to be formed from scratch,” Mr. Turbanov explained, noting that in three years there may be a “trend towards a decrease in the insurance premium rate.” The official was unable to avoid analogies that were unpleasant for banks with the Central Bank's mandatory reserve fund. The system for calculating contributions will be similar to the calculation of the Federal Reserve, he said.
Based on data on the current volume of bank deposits (more than 1.2 trillion rubles), the DIA predicts: after all banks enter the guarantee system, the fund will be replenished with 6-7 billion rubles annually. “The volume depends on the speed with which banks will join the deposit insurance system,” believes deputy general director of the agency Valery Miroshnikov. The effective size of the insurance fund should be 70 billion rubles, and despite the fact that the fund’s funds are unlikely to be placed with high returns (in 2004, for example, as Mr. Turbanov said, the fund’s funds will be placed in government securities and bonds of the Bank of Russia ), the agency expects to accumulate this amount within ten years. “This is a normal period, provided there are no systemic crises,” says the agency representative, “the Central Bank should take care of this.”
Despite the recent promise by the general director of the Rus-Rating agency, Richard Hainsworth, that “there will definitely be a banking crisis someday,” it can be assumed that the Central Bank will leave a significant number of credit institutions outside the insurance system and for some period the agency will avoid mass bankruptcies . However, experts believe that to create a fund of 70 billion rubles. officials will need a more serious sentence. “Even taking into account the increase in the rating of Russian banks, the probability of bankruptcy of the best of them is 10-15%,” says Mikhail Matovnikov, head of the banking department of Interfax, “This should be approximately the level of the fund’s expenses over ten years. It must be taken into account that the bankruptcy of a bank with household deposits of about 5 billion rubles. will deplete a significant portion of the fund." The analyst recalls that the restoration of the fund during bank bankruptcy proceedings may take four to five years. “Although we must admit that the absolute advantage of deposit insurance is an incentive for the authorities to create a normal system of bankruptcy and supervision,” he adds.
Meanwhile, government officials also express doubts about the effectiveness of the economic basis of the system. Thus, in January, the head of the economic department of the presidential administration, Anton Danilov-Danilyan, proposed that the Ministry of Finance return to the percentage scale of compensation for deposits. One hundred percent guarantees for deposits up to 100 thousand rubles in one bank, he believes, deprive depositors of the incentive to evaluate the condition of banks, therefore it is necessary that 100 percent compensation applies to a smaller amount (for example, 20 thousand rubles), and the rest of the deposit is compensated would be partially. Yuri VERETENNIKOV |
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