The head of VTB, Andrey Kostin, said at the Russia Calling investment forum that there is no crisis in the country, but "the situation, including in the financial sector, is not easy."
He believes that only those who are "too young" or those who have "a short memory" can see the crisis in Russia.
"When it comes to the main banking industry problems, of course raising the key rate from 10% to 17% at the end of last year was a shock for us and a hard blow for the economy. We protested and objected to such a policy. But as time went by, we saw it's not all that bad, and moving back to slashing the key rate was pretty rapid, we should say, in the first half of the year," he said.
RUSAL Chief Oleg Deripaska was an opponent of Kostin at the forum, because, according to him, there is a crisis in Russia.
"You cannot compare 1998, 2003 and 2007. There are other conditions now, access to capital markets has disappeared," he said.
According to Deripaska, there will be no changes in the Russian economy until interest rates fall to the level of 5% per annum, TASS reports.
