By Vestnik Kavkaza
All Russian citizens involved in the banking sphere celebrated their professional day on December 2nd. This year it was darkened by events which were called a panic by some experts. When Master-Bank was banned, which was in top-100 of banks according to assets, small banks received problems with liquidity because of an inflow of clients who wanted to transfer their deposits to major credit facilities.
Anatoly Aksakov, president of the Association of Regional Banks of Russia, calmed everybody down: “The situation is unstable, but it will normalize in the near future; the situation in the banking market will be stable. The banking system is quite stable. Corporate lending is growing faster than it was growing last year. Consumer lending is growing slower, but I think it is a positive moment. Last year consumer lending growth pace was 30%; today it is 22%. A high growth of consumer lending in the context of economic decline could lead to big problems in the segment; and banks could face significant problems with loan defaults. If it didn’t slow down, the problem could become more serious in the future.”
At the same time, according to Aksakov, unsecured consumer credits grew twofold slower than last year: “Last year in 10 months it was more than 40%; this year it is 22.4%. A rather quick growth of capital should be noted this year. In 10 months about 12% of lending organizations’ capital; the same period last year – 7.7%. It is a double growth – by 70% in comparison with the last year, it is a positive moment.”
And influx of funds of enterprises grew as well. “In comparison with the last year enterprises’ funds grew threefold faster. Last year it was 4.6%; this year – 11.4%,” Aksakov said. “Private deposits boosted as well.”
Andrey Yemelin, Chairman of the Financial Market National Council, thinks that reorganization of the Bank of Russia, which enhanced its functions, is the event of the year: “It establishes a new model of financial market management and demands huge expenditures from the Bank of Russia; at the same time it demands building much fairer competition conditions. If the state fails to fulfill the function, all representatives of power bodies should pay close attention to it.”
According to Yemelin, “the financial market has a complicated structure. Along with lending organizations there are many other players – microfinancial organizations, credit unions, pawnshops, creditors who work, according to the Civil Code and lend money. All these segments offer the same product. It is also crediting. These are segments of poor quality crediting in comparison with the banking segment. Taking measures on decreasing debt load by pressing on banks only is a path which can lead us to a different result which we want. Measures should be taken in complex. Adoption of regulations should touch on all market segments. We should make a principle choice and legally secure restrictions for non-crediting organizations. Until it is done, any measures directed at reduction of banking crediting will lead to extension of non-banking crediting which is less transparent, less controllable, much heavier for clients. And as a result, we can get results which differ from our expectations.”
