| Regional banks do not like the Mamut reform project The proposals of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) to reform the domestic banking system, outlined in Alexander Mamut’s interview with the Vremya Novostey newspaper (see No. 139 of August 6, 2001) , stirred up the financial community. The Association of Regional Banks of Russia (Russia Association) yesterday sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, outlining its vision of this problem. The association agrees with the need for change, but the ways and methods proposed by the RSPP raise concerns among its members. Regional bankers perceive the proposals of the chairman of the board of directors of MDM Bank, who heads the RSPP working group on banking reform, as nothing less than “an attempt to reshape the market.”
As the bankers write, we cannot allow events to develop “following the path of pre-crisis “national-scale banks” with super-authorized functions.”
At the beginning of this year, the Central Bank presented to the public its concept for the development of domestic banks. Representatives of the business elite did not ignore this large-scale work and decided to make their contribution. At the end of September, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Central Bank should announce a joint concept.
The tax initiatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and calls for a transition to international accounting standards are not new, and they have no opponents. Rejection was caused by the division of banks proposed by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs into two groups with different rights based on the amount of their own capital. Members of the association perceive this as the creation of preferential conditions for the development of the largest private banks. A cause for particular concern was Mamut’s proposed schedule for clearing the system of small and medium-sized banks.
Let us recall that the reform of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs involves a transition through a gradual increase in capital requirements to a three-tier system: Central Bank - banks with a general license - regional banks. In two years, only banks with a capital of at least $100 million will be able to have a general license. The rest will have to be content with limited licenses. At the same time, they must increase their capital to 200 million rubles within a year.
Now in Russia there are fewer than two dozen banks with a capital of $100 million, while 255 credit institutions have general licenses. This means that two hundred of them will have to either frantically increase their capital, or resign themselves to the fate of “second-class”. A sadder fate, according to the president of the Rossiya association, Alexander Murychev, awaits small banks (mostly regional) with capital that does not reach the minimum level of 200 million rubles. There are now more than a thousand of them. Many of them are unable to find money within a year and will have to sell. But another outcome is more likely - they will be deprived of their license.
As Mr. Murychev believes, such reforms will lead not to strengthening, but to complete paralysis of the country's payment and settlement system. “Stable regional banks will become unprofitable and will lose local markets to large Moscow banks,” he explains.
Other bankers agree with him. According to Igor Kim, general director of Sibacadembank, most of industrial production (90%) is concentrated not in Moscow, but in the regions, and if “smaller” local banks disappear, the system, which “takes into account the interests of not only giants, but also smaller enterprises,” will collapse " And the president of the Dzerzhinsky Bank, Vladimir Belozerov, does not exclude the possibility of a systemic crisis as a result of reform according to the RSPP scenario.
According to Larisa Larina, Chairman of the Board of Gazenergoprombank, “Mr. Mamut’s concept is based not on market, but on administrative methods of liquidating two-thirds of banks.” Elena MYAZINA |
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