Sberbank is one of three banks that did not fulfill its obligations at the Ministry of Finance auction for the placement of OFZ. This is the first refusal of a deal in the history of government securities placements.

View of the building of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation (Photo: Anton Belitsky/TASS)

The Moscow Exchange on Friday, October 23, revealed banks that did not fulfill orders to purchase OFZ at the Ministry of Finance auction on October 21. These are Sberbank, Bank Neiva and Ring of the Urals, the exchange issued them an official warning. Sberbank did not fulfill the transaction in the amount of 460.5 million rubles, Ring of the Urals - by 3.8 million rubles, Neiva Bank - by 102.3 million rubles.

After the auction on October 21, the Ministry of Finance announced that it had placed the entire planned volume of five-year OFZs with constant coupon income - 12.5 billion rubles. and two-year with variable for 4.9 billion rubles. But in the evening the department published a repeated message about the results of the auction - they managed to place securities worth 600 million rubles. less (500 million rubles from the first issue and 100 million rubles from the second).

“Auction participants who fail to fulfill their obligations under satisfied applications will be subject to liability measures provided for by the rules for trading in securities of the MICEX Stock Exchange CJSC,” the Ministry of Finance noted in a statement.

A trader from a large investment company that participated in the auction told RBC that at the time of submitting applications, some participants received requests with prices significantly higher than the lower cut-off threshold. “I think it was a technical error on the part of one of the employees or a glitch,” he suggested. “In my memory, this is the first case of non-fulfillment of a deal at an auction for the placement of OFZ,” Alexander Kudrin, head of Sberbank CIB, told the Vedomosti newspaper.

Senior portfolio manager of Capital Management Company Andrey Vallejo-Roman says that it is unlikely that the deal was not executed due to the fact that the banks did not have money. “There are peculiarities of participation of various players in such auctions. For example, NPFs that buy bonds through a management company or a broker deposit funds in accounts, and banks can use various sources of liquidity,” he explained. According to the manager, a technical error could have occurred - for example, the money was not transferred from the interbank bank on time. “I think that the story will not have financial consequences for Sberbank and other participants. Only image losses. Most likely, they will be allowed to buy back OFZs later,” says Vallejo-Roman.

A representative of the Sberbank press service said that the bank “submitted a large number of applications for the auction, one of which contained a technical error.” “Obligations for the rest have been fulfilled in full,” he said.

In total, this year the Ministry of Finance will have to borrow 800 billion rubles on the domestic market; next year the volume of borrowings may increase to 1.1 trillion rubles. In the first quarter, the Ministry of Finance wanted to place OFZ for 150 billion rubles, but the department managed to borrow only 103.5 billion rubles. In the second quarter, demand for government securities was supported by non-state pension funds, which received over half a trillion rubles in savings. By the end of the year, the Ministry of Finance expects to hold eight more auctions for the placement of OFZ.

Sberbank did not fulfill its obligations to the Ministry of Finance