Forbes named the most reliable Russian banks

"Subsidiaries" of foreign banks topped the rating of the most reliable banks according to Forbes. The top three are Unicredit Bank, Raiffeisenbank and Rosbank. It is followed by large Russian banks - Sberbank and VTB. In general, over the year, the number of the most reliable banks has increased - this time 30 banks fell into the category against 13 in 2018.

More. The Forbes rating was compiled by comparing the 100 largest banks in terms of their degree of reliability - data from Russian and international rating agencies, as well as the size of bank assets, were taken into account.

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• The most reliable were 30 banks - these are mainly "daughters" of foreign banks, as well as large Russian banks. This category was headed by Unicredit Bank, Raiffeisenbank, Rosbank (part of the Societe Generale group), Sberbank, VTB, Citibank, ING Bank (Eurasia), Nordea, HSBC Bank and Credit Agricole. The group also included Gazprombank, Alfa-bank, Rosselkhozbank, DOM.RF bank, etc.
• 22 banks fell into the category of fairly reliable banks: VBRR, Sovcombank, OTP Bank, Zenit, Vozrozhdenie (part of VTB), AB Rossiya, ICBC Bank (part of the Sovcombank group), RNKO Payment Center, MKB , Tinkoff Bank, Promsvyazbank, etc. The stability of these banks largely depends on a favorable business environment, but even if it worsens, they will be able to fulfill their obligations using alternative financial resources, Forbes notes.
• The next group included 23 banks: FC Otkritie, Loko-Bank, Evrofinance Mosnarbank, Expobank, Novikombank, Uralsib, Metallinvestbank, Surgutneftegazbank, and others. In a problem situation, they will have to rely on themselves. However, they have a limited liquidity cushion.
• Forbes found higher risks in 12 banks, including Russian Standard, Asia-Pacific Bank, Kuban Credit, Vostochny, SMP, etc.
• The magazine recognized 12 banks as the least reliable, including Baltinvestbank, Energotransbank, Ural Ring, United Capital, Bystrobank, Peresvet (part of RRDB), etc.

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Market situation. Cleaning up the banking sector since Elvira Nabiullina came to the Central Bank has made the sector more transparent, Forbes notes. The banks that remained on the market became more willing to cooperate with rating agencies. If at the beginning of 2018 only 63 banks out of the top 100 in terms of assets were rated by at least one Russian rating agency (ACRA or Expert RA), this year there are 78 of them. Private banks are becoming more transparent, and more and more questions call banks with state participation, sanitized and sanctioned banks.

• True, despite the increase in transparency, some problems remain, says Alexander Danilov, director of the financial organizations analysis group at Fitch Ratings. Among them are restructured loans, the adequacy of provisioning for problem assets, the quality and sources of capital in some banks.
• According to the forecast of the Expert RA agency, about 50 banks will leave the Russian banking market this year.