Next year in Russia can receive the regional banks with limited functionality and a simplified set of requirements from the regulator. As expected, they will facilitate access to financial resources in the regions and will contribute to the development of competition.
A three-tier system
That the regulator plans to allocate regional banks in credit institutions, the Central Bank Chairman Elvira Nabiullina said at the International financial Congress in St. Petersburg in late June. “This type can be assigned a relatively small regional organization with a limited number of the most simple banking transactions. The business model of such banks should be raising funds from individuals and legal entities of a specific region, their placement with minimal risk in loans to households and businesses, especially small and medium-sized, same region”, – said the head of the Central Bank.
Thus, in the future, regional banks can be attributed to the most close “to earth” link under the new three-tier system in which their individual niches also would have taken systemically important banks and the Federal. While for the latter, would and its own set of requirements, including part compliance with international standards.
As expected, the bill (on the website of the Central Bank it was published in late July) will present in autumn a new Parliament, formed after the September elections, told “Vesti.Economy Chairman of the state Duma Committee on economic policy, innovative development and entrepreneurship, head of the Association of regional banks of Russia Anatoly Aksakov. And hopefully, he added that before the end of 2016, parliamentarians will approve this document so that it came into force next year. According to some estimates, the regional group can be assigned to more than 200 banks. Although in a vast country with dozens of regions, many of them depressed, such credit institutions to facilitate access to financial resources on the ground, of course, must be greater than stipulated Aksakov.
In his view, these banks are able to make a positive impact on regional development, including by strengthening competition. And so these banks have not turned in those “laundries”, which the regulator in recent years, active in the struggle, should also establish appropriate and effective and strict supervision. In the long term, likely, regional banks it would be possible to combine with microfinance institutions, making it more transparent and manageable also the activities of the last, said the Deputy.
According to the authors of the project, by the way, in the course of transformation supervision of regional banks will not become softer, but will be simplified. In particular, they planned to reduce the number of mandatory regulations, easing the requirements on information disclosure. But such banks can operate only in specific regions and will lose the right, for example, to carry out cross-border operations. However in a prepared list of their rights and responsibilities there are certain discrepancies noticed Anatoly Aksakov. In particular, he remarked, while maintaining the minimum capital to 300 million rubles total assets is expected to limit RUB 7 billion whereas if the capital of a credit institution is 1 billion rubles., that, under the current rules, it can have assets of up to 10 billion rubles.
Territory or scale?
However, there many experts believe necessary to adjust some of the key approaches. In this case, as pointed out by the financial Ombudsman Pavel Medvedev, put in the forefront the territorial principle does not seem to be justified. Including because in practice it is quite difficult to restrict the activities of a particular Bank within the same region: for example, if a company, through the Bank transferred funds to its counterparty, then those can easily be transferred to any offshore. Obviously, more correctly, in such circumstances, it would be guided not by territorial borders, and the scale of the banks themselves. That is should it is about the small banks, which cannot be subjected to destruction, making them unaffordable requirements. A similar version previously promoted the Association of Russian banks, reminded Medvedev. Moreover, he said, it would hardly be legitimate to mix these banks with microfinance institutions, which are highly specific structures.
Merge small banks with MFIs impossible because of the differing degrees of risk, confirmed Director of the Banking Institute HSE Vasily Solodkov. And encouraged to focus on the long overdue formation of a tiered banking system, following the example of the successfully functioning in the US, for which, by the way, he has repeatedly made in recent years. Appropriate conversions have become even more urgent against the background of the activated regulator “Bank cleaning”. Now, the Central Bank sometimes 2-3 revokes banking license in a week. If business and further goes such a pace, soon the country will remain one of the state-owned banks, said Solodkov. Of course, he agreed, risks from the activities of small banks is not comparable with potential systemic threats from their larger counterparts. But in order to avoid possible negative, along with adequate supervision of the regulator, it is also necessary to ensure effective control by law enforcement agencies, concluded Solodkov.
Since late 2014, when the regulator stepped up the clearing of the banking sector, the experts record and its inevitable consolidation. In 2015, the regulator has revoked the licenses of 93 banks and NGOs. And for the current year have already lost their licenses 54 2 Bank and non-Bank credit organizations, is 7,6% of the total number of active licenses (733).
However, the debate about how to ensure the development of competition between banks and, along with large, also to keep the small credit organisations, many of whom have confirmed their vitality in a series of recent periods of crisis, began even earlier, in connection with initiated by former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin phased increase of minimum Bank capital. In recent times, in 2016, the bar has been raised to 300 million rubles.
And now, it seems, for small banks is also ready to recognize the right to life. In the subsequent discussions of the experts and market participants, obviously, will determine the most optimal model of the future, to practise which provided a two-year transition period.
