| The Central Bank expects massive lawsuits from banks Possible litigation with banks that have not entered the deposit insurance system haunts the regulator. As Sergei Golubev, director of the Central Bank's legal department, said yesterday, negative decisions of the Bank of Russia can be overturned by the courts. So far, however, there have been no precedents on the market. Only four banks, which were not initially admitted to the SSV, managed to appeal the decision of the Central Bank Banking Supervision Committee and achieve entry into the insurance system. However, this did not happen through the court, but thanks to a repeated petition to the same Central Bank.
It should be noted that 924 banks out of 1,100 that applied to join the system have now been accepted into the CER. At the same time, there are about 25 billion rubles of private depositors in non-accredited banks.
Market participants, unlike the Central Bank representative, believe that litigation can be avoided. First of all, thanks to the adopted amendments to the law on deposit insurance, according to which banks that are not included in the deposit insurance system are allowed to continue working with citizens’ deposits for three to four months, until a final decision is made regarding their acceptance into the system.
Those who again cannot get into the SSV will apparently still have to go to court, but the prospects for banks are not very favorable. Especially if you take into account under what “article” they were not allowed to work with private investors.”
According to Mr. Golubev, approximately two-thirds of the banks that were not admitted to the deposit insurance system were filed claims by the Central Bank for violating the law on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. “We punish banks for cashing out, although this is a normal banking operation provided for by law. But we do not do this indiscriminately,” the official emphasized.
The Central Bank’s targeted policy of cleaning up banks has already led to the revocation of licenses from 13 credit institutions for this reason, “mask shows” were held in dozens to seize documents, and prices for “cash out” have increased several times since the spring. Judging by the ambitions of the head of the FMC, Viktor Zubkov, who informs the public almost daily about the number of cases brought against banks, the hunt for “laundries” will only intensify.
On the other hand, the bankers themselves, although they complained about the exorbitant requirements put forward by the Central Bank when joining the insurance system, said in informal conversations that during the regulator’s inspections they “adjusted” the data in their statements and found a common language with the inspectors. Most likely, those who still expect to get into the NER will follow the same path. Not wanting additional noise, the Central Bank will apparently do everything to avoid lawsuits. But subsequently it will have to revoke the licenses of the CER member banks. There have already been precedents, and, as they say in the Central Bank itself and in the Deposit Insurance Agency, most likely the bankruptcies of such credit institutions will continue. Natalia ROMANOVA |
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