In an effort to overcome the 2008 crisis, the Russian Central Bank launched a very dubious system of reorganizing failed banks, which largely predetermined the further development of the banking system

The events of recent months, when large banks regularly collapse in Russia, have given rise to a lot of talk and forecasts regarding the current or upcoming banking crisis. Despite the importance of events in the banking sector, in my opinion, everything that happens needs to be treated with restraint, applying the well-known principle: flies apart, cutlets apart.

From mistakes to collapse

Let's start with definitions. There is no single definition of a banking crisis in the world, but the IMF, for example, traditionally understands by this a situation when banks en masse are unable to fulfill their obligations to clients, when clients cannot receive cash or make payments, and to get out of this situation the state must spend significant amounts of budgetary or central bank funds. Usually people start talking about a banking crisis when several fairly large banks that make up a significant part of the banking system (or some part of it, for example, in the late 1980s in America there was a crisis of savings and loan associations, but crisis phenomena did not have gone beyond the boundaries of this sector), which often find themselves in a crisis situation like a domino effect - seeing queues at the branches of one bank, depositors of others run to their own.

To talk about the presence of a banking crisis, there must also be an external “systemic” reason due to which banks encountered difficulties. This could be a devaluation of the national currency, or a sharp economic downturn and an increase in the volume of bad loans on banks’ balance sheets, or a sharp drop in the value of some asset class (securities or land) that banks accepted as collateral when issuing loans. Errors in the management of one specific, albeit large, bank almost never become the cause of a systemic crisis; just remember the collapse of Barings Bank, which went bankrupt in 1995 due to weaknesses in internal control and risk management systems.

An obvious example of the banking crisis in Russia was the events of 1998, when many large private banks were unable to fulfill their obligations to clients. In June-July, problems arose in two large banks - SBS-Agro and Inkombank, which brought them to the brink of insolvency, but did not in any way affect the performance of other banks. And only after August 17, when the government announced its inability to pay its debts and the Central Bank switched to a floating ruble exchange rate, problems began for the remaining banks, and their depositors, who kept their savings in foreign currency, lost a significant part of their savings, even if they agreed to use the quasi-deposit guarantee system invented by the Bank of Russia on the spot. To overcome the crisis, the Central Bank then used both traditional schemes to support banks (loans) and non-traditional ones - centralized multilateral clearing; as a result, by the end of 1998, the Russian banking system had restored its functionality, and those banks that were able to survive during the crisis continued to operate.

Generosity of the Central Bank

The events of 2008 are already much more difficult to describe using crisis terminology. On the one hand, there were obvious external shocks (falling oil prices and the stock market, devaluation of the ruble, economic recession); on the other hand, although the outflow of household deposits from banks in its intensity and scale was comparable to the level of 1998 (about 20% of deposits), active lending to banks by the Central Bank led to the fact that most of them were able not only to make payments normally and issue money clients, but also to quickly increase foreign currency assets at a time when the Central Bank was holding the ruble exchange rate, trying to create the illusion of stability, which, due to the subsequent devaluation, allowed banks to make good money and compensate for the losses incurred in the first stage of the crisis.

Although several banks were overwhelmed by the crisis wave - Globex, KIT-Finance, Svyazbank - none of them was truly large and systemic, capable of causing a “domino effect”. It is worth remembering that already in the very first anti-crisis measures of the government there was strong support from the two largest banks (Sberbank and VTB), which instantly received hundreds of billions of rubles. It seems that there were doubts about the stability of these two banks, which materialized - Sberbank, which quickly returned part of the loan received to the Bank of Russia, restored its loan in full (500 billion rubles) in the spring of 2015, and VTB did not even make an attempt to repay received loan. It is obvious that the actions of the state at that moment played a huge stabilizing role.

The problem of state control

And here we come to a very important observation: by 2008, the state’s share in the banking system exceeded 50% both in terms of the amount of assets and the amount of household deposits. And the decisive support of state banks during the crisis (state-owned VEB and Rosselkhozbank also received budget money) showed that the state intends to keep them afloat at any cost. If we remember that approximately another 20% of the Russian banking system at that time was controlled by banks with foreign capital, which, pursuing an ultra-restrained policy, turned out to be extremely far from the crisis line, then it becomes clear that a maximum of 30% of the system that belonged to the Russian fell into the potential risk zone. private business. However, it is extremely difficult to imagine that all private banks will collapse at the same time, and this narrows the space for a potential crisis even further.

Thus, it is necessary to record that the high share of the state in banking capital in Russia is a kind of counterbalance to any crisis processes. To some extent, this picture is reminiscent of the Chinese banking sector - only the lazy do not know about the presence of a huge number of bad assets on its balance sheets, experts have been predicting a large-scale crisis for several years, but the state’s shareholder control over banks allows the situation to be maintained with the help of real cash injections, then simple accounting entries. To date, the state’s share in the Russian banking system has exceeded 70% (the share of banks with foreign capital has approximately halved), so the strength of this “counterweight” has undoubtedly increased, but negative consequences have also made themselves felt.

The cost of overcoming the banking crisis of 2008 in Russia turned out to be very significant - according to the Development Center, it is approximately 7.6% of GDP - but the efficiency of using these funds was extremely low. On the one hand, most of the assistance was concentrated in state banks, whose management system did not improve after the crisis. Since then, almost every year the federal budget has allocated money in one form or another to support state banks.

On the other hand, during the 2008 crisis, the Central Bank launched an inherently dubious system of reorganizing collapsed banks. World practice shows that it makes sense to provide support to a bank until its actual bankruptcy - if this happens, then the bank’s loss of reputation in the market cannot be restored. However, as often happens, the world experience of Russia is not a decree; moreover, every time a decision was made to rehabilitate a bank there were compelling reasons: one bank had an attractive real estate portfolio, another had large stakes in telecommunications companies, a third bank needed saving a large deposit of a very, very important client. So one should not be surprised that not a single bank that fell into the hands of the sanatorium (no matter who this sanatorium was) was able to become normally operating again, which, however, did not stop the management of the Bank of Russia from making more and more decisions to begin the sanation. We will tell you what this led to in the next column.

08.02.2018
Events. The Central Bank adjusted the dictionary. New concepts have appeared in the Bank of Russia program document. Was made public yesterday policy document Bank of Russia, describing plans for the development and application of new technologies in the financial market in the coming years. The main ideas, concepts and projects have already been announced by the regulator in one way or another. At the same time, the Central Bank introduces and discloses new terms, in particular, RegTech, SupTech and “end-to-end identifier”. Experts note that these areas have been successfully developing in Europe for a long time.

08.02.2018
Events. The State Duma issued capital a pass to Russia. It was decided to repeat the one-time business amnesty. The Russian State Duma adopted on Wednesday in the first, and a few hours later - in the second reading, a package of bills initiated by Vladimir Putin on the resumption of the capital amnesty. The new act of “forgiveness” was announced as the second stage of the 2016 campaign, which was then presented as a one-time campaign and was actually ignored by business. Since the attractiveness of the Russian jurisdiction and trust in its law enforcement officers have not increased over the past two years, the bet is now placed on the thesis that capital must be returned to the country because it is worse for them abroad than in Russia.

07.02.2018
Events. Control and supervision are tailored to fit the figure. Business and authorities compared approaches to reform. The results and prospects for the reform of control and supervisory activities were discussed yesterday by representatives of the business community and regulators as part of the “Week Russian business"under the auspices of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Despite a 30% decrease in the number of scheduled inspections, businesses complain about the administrative burden and call on the authorities to respond more quickly to proposals from entrepreneurs. The government, in turn, plans to revise mandatory requirements, reform the Code of Administrative Offences, digitalization and acceptance of reporting in the “one window” mode.

07.02.2018
Events. Transparency will be added to issuers. But investors are waiting for additions to shareholder meetings. The Moscow Exchange is preparing changes to the listing rules for issuers whose shares are on the highest quotation lists. In particular, companies will be required to create special sections on their websites for shareholders and investors, the maintenance of which will be controlled by the exchange. Large issuers already meet these requirements, but investors consider it important to enshrine these obligations in the document. In addition, in their opinion, the exchange should pay attention to the disclosure of information for shareholder meetings, which is the most sensitive issue in the relationship between issuers and investors.

07.02.2018
Events. The Central Bank of Russia will read the advertising carefully. The financial regulator has found a new field for supervision. Not only the Federal Antimonopoly Service, but also the Central Bank will soon begin to evaluate the integrity of financial advertising. Starting this year, as part of behavioral supervision, the Bank of Russia will identify advertising financial companies and banks, containing signs of violations, and report this to the FAS. If banks receive not only fines from the FAS, but also recommendations from the Central Bank, this could change the situation with advertising in the financial market, experts say, but the procedure for applying supervisory measures of the Central Bank in new field not yet described.

06.02.2018
Events. Not by accent, but by passport. Foreign investments under the control of Russians will remain without international protection already in the spring. A government bill depriving investments of foreign companies and persons with dual citizenship controlled by Russians from the protection of the law on foreign investment, in particular, guarantees of freedom to withdraw profits, will be adopted by the Russian State Duma in early March. The document does not recognize investments through trusts and other fiduciary institutions as foreign. Structures controlled by Russians that invest in strategic assets in the Russian Federation, The White house is still ready to consider them foreign investors - but for them, as before, this only means the need to approve transactions with the Foreign Investment Commission.

06.02.2018
Events. Government agencies are not given banks. FAS Russia intends to limit the expansion of the public sector in the financial market. The Federal Antimonopoly Service has developed proposals to limit purchases of banks by government agencies. The FAS plans to amend the law “On Banks and Banking Activities” and is currently working on them with the Central Bank (CB). An exception may be the reorganization of banks, ensuring the availability of banking services in areas that need it, as well as issues of national security. The head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has already supported this initiative.

06.02.2018
Events. Online audit was given a chance. IIDF is ready to support remote inspections. Online auditing, until now a side branch of this business, which was mainly carried out by unscrupulous companies, has received support at the state level. The Internet Initiatives Development Fund invested 2.5 million rubles in the AuditOnline company, thus recognizing the promise of this area. However, market participants are confident that online audits have no legitimate future - remote audits contradict international auditing standards.

05.02.2018
Events. It is recommended to refrain from legal transactions. The Central Bank of Russia considered “hidden trust management” unethical. The Bank of Russia warns professional participants against using some popular, but not entirely ethical practices in relation to clients in the stock market. The schemes described in the regulator’s letter are within the legal framework, so the Central Bank limited itself to recommendations. But in fact, the regulator is testing the use of motivated judgment, the right to use of which has not yet been approved by law.

05.02.2018
Events. The absorption will be less entertaining. The Central Bank of Russia is encouraging banks to reduce lending to M&A transactions. The idea of ​​the Central Bank to encourage banks to lend not to mergers and acquisitions of companies, but to the development of production takes on concrete features. The first step could be to instruct banks to create increased reserves for loans issued for M&A transactions. According to experts, this will reduce such lending, but in order for bank resources to go to the development of production, additional incentive measures will be required.

Banking crisis(Banking Crisis) - a sharp change in the external and internal conditions of the activity, as a result of which it becomes unable to function stably and perform its main functions. Distinguish between crisis in a separate bank And systemic crisis of the banking system. The banking crisis is a significant shock to the entire economy of the country and is characterized by sharp decline and banks, a crisis of non-payments, failure of banks to fulfill their obligations to creditors and depositors, an increase in the share of problem and overdue loans, a decrease in profitability, and sometimes significant amount banks. The banking crisis is accompanied by a massive withdrawal of funds from the banking system, a decrease in the pace and volume of lending, an increase in interest rates and levels, a fall in consumer demand and a decrease in production volumes.

The main factors causing the banking crisis include economic, political and social. The causes of a banking crisis may be crises of the monetary system or specific crises in individual financial or large commodity markets. As a rule, the impetus for a banking crisis, which destabilizes the development of the banking system, is external factors, accompanied by a sharp national currency, significant stock exchange crises, high depreciation of bank deposits and financial assets, especially real estate.

However real reasons The banking crisis is found in the activities of the banks themselves, which by their nature are high-risk institutions and must always be ready to prevent any risk. The internal causes of the banking crisis include insufficient level, low level of corporate governance, significant dependence on external borrowings, imperfection, etc.

The main difference between a systemic banking crisis is that it affects the majority of banks, affects the financial condition of non-banking financial institutions and other sectors of the economy, leads to the banking system due to the loss of a significant part of bank capital, as well as significant financial losses population, to a decrease in confidence in the banking system and the national currency.

The most famous banking crises are the crises in the 1990s in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, South-East Asia, where losses amounted to 10-40% of GDP. During the 1994 crisis in Mexico, portfolio outflows amounted to approximately $50 billion. Russia suffered significant losses in 1998, when the ruble was devalued by almost 80%, and in 2009, the Russian Central Bank used $211 billion of its gold and foreign exchange reserves to eliminate the consequences of the crisis. The global financial crisis of 2008-2009, which was accompanied by a banking crisis, turned out to be devastating for the financial and banking systems of many countries.

Happy birthday to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. They consider September 15, 2008, when one of the largest investment banks in the world, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy. This date has earned a place in the history books not only as the world's largest bankruptcy, but also as the starting point of the global financial crisis. The collapse of financial markets, the threat of bankruptcy of the world's largest financial institutions, a record collapse of stock markets - here short description of what happened in the next few weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The source of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. became the banking sector, which, due to the accumulation of significant volumes of individual risks, turned out to be a weakly regulated link. The “risk diffusion” theory that financiers relied on for many years, believing that systemic shocks could be avoided by hedging individual risks, has turned out to be false.

The methodology and tools for forecasting systemic risks and the banking crisis turned out to be insufficiently developed or absent altogether. The regulatory systems of many countries did not take into account the real problems of the development of the financial sector, and the regulators themselves were unable to foresee crisis phenomena and promptly respond to banking panics and financial shocks.

The consequences of the crisis were eliminated both through the use of monetary policy instruments of central banks and through active government actions using significant amounts of budget funds. However, practice has shown that for many countries this method turned out to be not the most effective from a socio-economic point of view, which led to socio-economic crises and increased social tension. Even during 2010-2012. In some countries, financial markets and banking systems felt the consequences of the global crisis.

Ukraine is considered one of the most affected countries. During the crisis, the country's GDP decreased by 15.4%, industrial production- by 22%, and the national currency depreciated by 68%.

A systemic banking crisis has begun in Russia, and there is a high probability of its worsening in the coming year, RBC writes with reference to experts from the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (TSMAKP) in its report. They believe that soon the share of problem assets in the assets of the banking system will exceed 10%, and at least one of the systemically important banks will require additional capitalization from state funds

TsMAKP experts described the high risk of a systemic banking crisis before September 2015 in a review published on Wednesday, October 15. According to the authors of the report, the likelihood of a banking crisis in Russia already exceeds a critical threshold.

TsMAKP experts call a systemic banking crisis a situation in which at least one of three conditions is realized: first, clients withdraw a significant share of funds from accounts and deposits; secondly, the share of problem assets in the total assets of the banking system exceeds 10%; thirdly, the reorganization or nationalization of a significant part (more than 10 banks or a large-scale (in the amount of more than 2% of GDP) one-time recapitalization of banks by the state is being carried out. The third measure is forced: its goal is to smooth out the consequences of the outflow of client funds from banks and the growth of problem banking assets.

One of these conditions was met in the first quarter of 2014, TsMAKP experts point out: funds of all categories of bank clients in accounts and deposits decreased by 1.4%, including funds individuals– by 3.9%. “Formally, from now on we can talk about an ongoing systemic crisis in the banking sector,” the review states.

Experts expect that in the near future the share of problem assets in the banking system will exceed 10% (currently just above 8%). In addition, the TsMAKP report notes that at least one of the systemically important banks will lose stability and will require government support. “This conclusion is based on an analysis of the dynamics of overdue loans and capital adequacy indicators of Russian banks,” the document says.

However, experts do not consider the situation catastrophic and are confident that three factors can help get out of the banking crisis. Firstly, the depreciation of the real effective exchange rate of the ruble has an indirect positive impact on the banking system. The review states that while the decline is not precipitous, it is helping to restore the profitability of import-competing businesses and exporters. In addition, the process of unemployment growth has stopped, which reduces the risk of an increase in the number of insolvent borrowers - individuals. Also, TsMAKP experts note that the share of loans to enterprises and households in GDP is important: “The growth of this indicator has stopped due to the cooling of the personal lending market. This creates the preconditions for stabilizing the level of debt burden.”

UMAKP analysts believe that there is a systemic banking crisis in the Russian Federation, and there are serious fears of its worsening in the next 12 months. Experts believe that the time is not far off when problem bank loans will become more than 10% of them. total number, as a result, at least one systemically important bank will need additional capitalization and assistance from the state.

The Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting expects that a systemic banking crisis will arise in Russia before September next year. RBC reports this with reference to the TsMAKP review published today. Experts believe that this moment the probability of its occurrence has already exceeded the critical threshold - at the beginning of September, the summary leading indicator reached 0.105, while its threshold value is 0.098.

When does a systemic banking crisis occur?

A systemic banking crisis is understood as a situation characterized by the implementation of one of the following conditions:

1. Clients withdraw a significant share of funds from deposits and accounts
2. The number of problem assets among total assets is more than 10%
3. Over 10% of banks are nationalized or reorganized
4. The state is carrying out large-scale simultaneous recapitalization of banks amounting to more than 2% of GDP

If we talk about the last two measures, they are forced and are aimed at leveling the consequences of the outflow of customer funds from banks, as well as the increase in problem assets.

TsMAKP analysts report that in the first quarter of 2014, funds on deposits and accounts decreased by 1.4%, and funds from individuals decreased by 3.9%. This is one of the conditions. The review states that since then it can be assumed that banking sector a systemic crisis has begun.”

According to analysts, in the near future the share of complex assets of the entire banking system will exceed 10%; at the moment it is slightly more than 8%. In addition, TsMAKP reports that at least one of the systemically important banks will need state assistance, since it will lose its stability. The report says: “This can be reached by analyzing the dynamics of overdue loans, as well as capital adequacy indicators of Russian banks.”

Three factors that will help the Russian banking system

At the same time, they do not assess the current situation as catastrophic; in their opinion, there are 3 factors that will help overcome the banking crisis. The first of them is that a decrease in the real effective exchange rate of the ruble has a positive effect on the banking system. The document said that as long as the reduction does not become precipitous, it will help import-competing businesses restore profitability and also support exporters. In addition, the process of increasing unemployment has slowed down, as a result, the likelihood of an increase in the number of insolvent borrowers - individuals - has decreased. TsMAKP analysts also draw attention to the importance of the share of loans to the population and the corporate sector in GDP: “The growth of this indicator has decreased due to the cooling of the retail lending market. Thanks to this, the prerequisites are created for stabilizing the debt burden.”

According to analysts, these three factors will soon help end the ongoing banking crisis.