December 13, 2015, 23:17 / Finance

The creation of Pochta Bank may deprive Svyaz-Bank of its key corporate client - Russian Post

It accounts for 15–20% of the bank’s client funds Anna Eremina Olga Petrova

Svyaz-Bank hopes that Pochta will not leave immediately / E. Razumny / Vedomosti

The creation of a postal bank could result in Svyaz-Bank losing one of its main clients - Russian Post, which holds its funds in it: accounts and deposits.

“We carried out a stress scenario: what would happen if Pochta completely left us,” Olga Oleynik, deputy chairman of the board of Svyaz-Bank, told Vedomosti. According to her, “this is not fatal” for the bank, but she hopes that the company will not withdraw the funds completely. “We still consider Russian Post as our key client and hope that we will continue cooperation on some products,” Oleynik said. And she added that for now cooperation continues in the same format.

Russian Post is a major client of Svyaz-Bank and this is a fairly important source of funding, points out S&P analyst Anastasia Turdyeva. In connection with the creation of the postal bank, there is a possibility that Pochta will leave Svyaz-Bank, she says. However, in her opinion, the bank will most likely cope with such an outflow of funds, especially if it occurs in stages.

At the beginning of the year, Russian Post funds accounted for approximately 15–20% of all funds of Svyaz-Bank clients, points out Fitch analyst Anton Lopatin. In 2013–2014 These balances occupied a large share of the bank's funding, although they were always quite volatile, he emphasizes. “Over the years, we have diversified our dependence on this client,” confirms Oleynik.

Valuable asset

VTB 24 can earn 4–5 billion rubles for the sale of 50% minus 1 share of Leto Bank to Russian Post, the RBC website reported. The capital of Leto Bank as of November 1, 2015 is 6.9 billion rubles. – thus, the multiplier varies from 0.57 to 0.7. Two attempts were made to create a postal bank, moreover, on the basis of Svyaz-Bank. First, in 2007, but during the crisis the bank was handed over to VEB for reorganization, after which at the end of 2009, the supervisory board of VEB decided to turn Svyaz-Bank into a postal bank, but both attempts led to nothing.

The total balance of client funds (excluding banks) at Svyaz-Bank changed slightly during these years, Lopatin points out; at the end of October it amounted to 240 billion rubles. It turns out that the share of Post may account for 36–48 billion rubles.

However, the structure of money raised from corporate clients has changed noticeably. Since 2013, the amount of funds that state-owned companies held in current accounts with Svyaz-Bank decreased from 75.8 billion to 39.8 billion rubles; the bank replaced them with funds from private resident companies, as follows from its Russian reporting.

If Pochta withdraws its funds, this will not create significant problems, Lopatin believes: the bank has enough liquid assets, for example, securities that can be pledged to the Central Bank, cash, etc. - a total of about 100 billion rubles.

The departure of Pochta may affect not so much the bank's liquidity as its business. According to Lopatin, if Pochta leaves, the bank will lose both commission income and fairly cheap funding.

The fact that the postal bank will be created on the basis of VTB’s subsidiary, Leto Bank, was announced at the beginning of September this year. After the renaming of Leto Bank to Pochta Bank (the fact that the bank will be called exactly that was announced at the beginning of last week by VTB Chairman Andrey Kostin), VTB Group will remain in the hands of 50% plus 1 share, and the rest will be acquired by the subsidiary. Russian Post" (see inset). Russian Post itself, while remaining a federal state unitary enterprise, is legally deprived of the right to participate in credit organizations.

A representative of Russian Post did not comment on the possibility of transferring funds from Svyaz-Bank to the newly created subsidiary bank. He only indicated that a shareholder agreement is now being prepared between the VTB Group and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Post and other agreements necessary for the implementation of the partnership. “Based on the results of this work, further actions will be determined,” he said. A VTB representative declined to comment.