Putin's latest reform

Reader, do you remember the last time a large-scale economic reform began in Russia? Yes, the reform of RAO UES continues, or rather, is being completed (the death of this natural monopoly is scheduled for June 30, 2008). Do you remember other reforms? From this point on, read carefully. At the suggestion of Alexei Kudrin, Vladimir Putin gave the green light to the banking reform.

This is her backstory. Whatever Alexei Kudrin or anyone else may say about Russia's resettlement to the island of stability, someone but Russian banks regularly experience the tidal waves of foreign capital, which easily roll over the entire island.

When the wave is tidal, the banks are in a positive mood - liquidity is more than enough. When the tide is out, the opposite is true. In January-February 2008, the ebb amounted to $20 billion. Banks once again see the specter of a liquidity crisis in front of them, and it is against this background that banking reform begins. Its first step is to place the money of numerous state corporations and even free budgetary funds of the Federal Treasury as such in commercial bank accounts. And what kind of reform is this, the reader may grimaced. Take your time, because there will be a second step.

The return of the budget to the accounts of commercial banks, of course, pleases the banks themselves. But not all. The question is who exactly will get the full-flowing budgetary cash flow. The second step is exactly that. Of course, everything will be done: a methodology has been written, a transparent competitive procedure has been defined.

But something tells me that, with rare exceptions, it will be the banks controlled by the state that will benefit the most. And this is no intuition. The precedent has already been set. The State Corporation "Bank for the Development of Foreign Economic Affairs" has already placed free funds, 120 billion rubles, in commercial banks. According to available information, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Vozrozhdenie Bank and Alfa-Bank got the most.

The contours of the reform are clearly visible. So, Russian banks faced difficulties in the Russian money market due to the flight of speculative foreign capital and the simultaneous rise in the cost of loans in the West (another consequence of banks' distrust of risky markets and their subjects due to the US mortgage crisis). The government, placing significant budgetary funds in banks, meets the banks halfway. But not everyone. This means that there is likely weeding in the bank garden ahead. And this is reform. Its result will be a further strengthening of the positions of the already most powerful link in Russian banks - state-owned ones. A wave of mergers and acquisitions is possible.

The goal, of course, is to strengthen the banks that survived the reform. I'll say more. Since we are talking about her landmarks, how not to remember the middle of the 90s, cursed from the high stands. The parallel is clear, as in Euclidean geometry. Everything was the same: after the first seizures (of course, friendly, with the consent, possibly disinterested, of the relevant officials) by banks of budget accounts, everything was legalized, an institution of commercial banks authorized to maintain budget accounts appeared. Among which, of course, the oligarchs prevailed.

It turns out that sometimes you still manage to enter the same river twice. There would be interest. In this case, it is present. The main change in that stratum of the Russian population that calls itself the elite is that the group of state capitalists is expanding and gaining strength. Now it will be supplemented by state oligarchs on the model of the 90s.