Translated material
Short-term well-being
The President held a meeting on the state of the banking system
Against the backdrop of the gas conflict with Ukraine and the European Union, which is unprecedented in scope, the Russian leadership is not forgetting about purely internal matters. Yesterday, at his residence in Gorki, President Dmitry Medvedev held another meeting on economic issues, this time in the usual format, measures to stabilize the situation in the banking sector were discussed. According to the president and the head of the Central Bank, Sergei Ignatiev, who joined him, the measures have already had a positive impact on short-term liquidity. However, additional steps will be required for “long-term” money to appear in the economy.“The priority measures taken recently have helped stabilize the situation in the banking sector,” Mr. Medvedev said optimistically. “The effectiveness of these measures is also evidenced by the situation with short-term liquidity,” which at the moment suits the president: “In general, everything is fine with short-term liquidity; its level has remained stable since October.”
At the same time, Dmitry Medvedev pointed to the continuing low level of long-term liquidity. And he promised that the state would continue to make efforts to create “long-term” money in the market. According to the president, some “additional operational decisions” are already ready.
“In the near future, changes will be made to the federal law on banks and banking activities. We may also talk about additional capitalization, but we need to decide on other additional steps for state support for increasing the capitalization of banks and credit organizations,” the head of state called, first of all, on the leadership of the Central Bank.
The President also assessed the measures already taken by the Central Bank to change the conditions for providing refinancing secured by various assets. “But for a significant part of industrial enterprises, bank loans still remain inaccessible,” Mr. Medvedev noted. “We are talking about high interest rates and, in fact, the impossibility of sometimes obtaining borrowed funds.”
The head of the Central Bank, Sergei Ignatiev, confirmed and substantiated with figures the stabilization in the banking sector by the end of last year. “The situation stabilized in December,” he said. “If the population’s deposits in October decreased by 360 billion rubles, in November they remained practically unchanged, there was only a slight decrease, then in December the increase amounted to 400 billion rubles.” At the same time, even if we exclude exchange rate differences associated with the weakening of the ruble against the dollar, the increase in household deposits amounted to 500 billion rubles. “Against the background of the events in October and November, this is a positive result,” says Mr. Ignatiev.
The chief banker considered it his duty to note the efforts of Russian banks to increase lending to the real sector. “There is a slight growth, although very small,” Mr. Ignatiev tried to be objective. “The total amount of loans provided to the real sector and the population increased by 1.3% in December, excluding exchange rate differences. This is less than in previous months, because we usually grow at a rate of 3-4% per month,” admitted Mr. Ignatiev. “I hope that in the coming months we will be able to find ways to increase this figure,” the country’s chief banker nevertheless considered it necessary to support the president’s optimistic mood.
In turn, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin said at a meeting with the president that the financial authorities of the Russian Federation have so far allocated 146.2 billion rubles for the rehabilitation of problem banks. “To date, 114 billion rubles have been allocated from the Bank of Russia to support banks, and 32.2 billion rubles from the Deposit Insurance Agency,” said Mr. Kudrin. According to him, 15 banks are currently being reorganized.