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The Bank of Russia has identified those to whom it will guarantee operations on the interbank lending market
The Bank of Russia has established criteria by which it will identify credit organizations in order to compensate them for losses in the interbank lending market. They correspond to banks such as Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, Bank of Moscow, Alfa Bank, Rosbank, Unicreditbank, Raiffeisenbank and MDM Bank. According to the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Alexei Ulyukaev, the regulator will sign a corresponding agreement with the three banks this week. As VTB told Vremya Novostey yesterday, the bank is “now negotiating with the Central Bank.” Most likely, the other two banks with which the regulator will sign agreements will be Gazprombank and Sberbank. According to market participants, the introduction of guarantees from the regulator should help restore trust between banks. In addition, to solve liquidity problems, the Central Bank intends to place unsecured loans for six months in November. Previously, the maximum period was three months.Back in early October, the Central Bank announced that Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank would receive 60 billion rubles. for interbank lending. State-owned banks were expected to provide loans to smaller financial institutions and thus help them cope with the liquidity crisis. However, the problem was not solved - state banks did not want to take risks, fearing that their counterparties would not return the money to them. Then the Central Bank promised banks to compensate most of the losses if their counterparties’ licenses were revoked.
Yesterday, the Central Bank determined the criteria according to which the regulator will provide guarantees for operations in the interbank lending market to only ten Russian banks. In particular, a financial institution must have a long-term credit rating for obligations in foreign currency at a level not lower than BB according to the classification of Standard & Poor's or Fitch Ratings or not lower than Ba1 according to the classification of Moody's. If these requirements are met by credit institutions that are part of one banking group, then the agreement is concluded with the parent credit institution of the banking group. In addition, the credit institution’s own funds must be at least 30 billion rubles.
According to Renaissance Capital analyst Nikolai Podguzov, most of the banks that meet the criteria developed by the regulator have been the main providers of liquidity recently. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Bank of Russia will provide support to these credit institutions in the event of non-payments in the interbank lending market. “The fact that the Central Bank will compensate banks for losses in the interbank lending market should contribute to an increase in lending by large banks,” Mr. Podguzov believes. “Together with other measures of the government and the Central Bank, this should lead to an improvement in the liquidity situation in the market.”
The chief economist of the Russian Deutsche Bank, Yaroslav Lisovolik, shares a similar opinion: “The introduction of a loss compensation system for some banks in the interbank lending market should reduce both lending risks and loan rates. Similar measures were taken by the authorities of other countries, where they had a positive effect.” In his opinion, this innovation of the Central Bank alone cannot qualitatively improve the liquidity situation. “Only a set of government measures can completely correct the situation,” Mr. Lisovolik believes.
As is known, among other proposals of the regulator to stabilize the liquidity situation is the provision of unsecured loans. Yesterday, Mr. Ulyukaev said that this month the Central Bank will hold an unsecured auction to provide funds to banks for six months - so far this is the longest period during which financial institutions can use the regulator's money. According to Mr. Ulyukaev, in the future the Bank of Russia will hold “short” (five-week) and “long” (three- or six-month) auctions.