2024-03-21 05:30:00
Forbes published the previous rating of 100 reliable Russian banks exactly two years ago, in the spring of 2022. We started preparing that rating a week before the announcement of the “special operation”* in Ukraine. By the end of February – beginning of March, it was possible to talk about reliability in the Russian banking sector only with a certain degree of conditionality: a cascade of sanctions against the largest banks, the withdrawal of credit ratings from foreign agencies, the closure of reporting, depositor runs and the collapse of the national currency did not inspire optimism.
The current situation bears little resemblance to that panic period. Banks, unlike previous crises, did not require an injection of money from the state, and they ended 2023 with the highest net profit in the history of the sector – 3.3 trillion rubles. The Central Bank did not revoke banks’ licenses for a record year and a half. The excess equity in the sector as a whole at the end of 2023 amounted to 5 trillion rubles – for banks this is both a significant safety net in case of unforeseen losses and an opportunity to increase their loan portfolio. “The year was outstanding in terms of results, business growth, very high indicators in terms of loan portfolio growth, increase in depositor funds – households and companies, profits are very high, which is in a sense a surprise,” – admitted Head of the Department of Banking Regulation and Analytics of the Central Bank Alexander Danilov.
Despite the fact that the value of capital adequacy standards is lower than what it was before the start of the “special operation”, its decrease at the end of 2023 was not critical. Against the backdrop of a stable influx of funds from legal entities and individuals into the accounts of the Central Bank, starting from March 2024, the Central Bank canceled for systemically important banks the relaxations on the short-term liquidity ratio that had remained in place since 2022 – requirements for the presence of a safety net of highly liquid assets that will allow them to fulfill all obligations on the horizon of the month in the event of a crisis . Thus, almost all significant relaxations given by the regulator to banks two years ago have been cancelled.
At the same time, February 2024 showed that even banks from the top hundred in terms of assets are not immune from license revocation. The Bank of Russia stopped the activities of Qiwi Bank. However, the reasons for revoking the license were not “economic” – insolvency or loss of assets. The bank operator of qiwi wallets lost its license due to involvement in high-risk transactions related to shadow businesses – illegal online casinos, bookmakers, crypto exchangers and money laundering. Violation of anti-money laundering legislation is the main reason for the revocation of licenses from banks over the past five years, after the main work to clean up the banking sector was completed.
When compiling the rating, Forbes relied on the assessments of Russian rating agencies accredited by the Central Bank: ACRA, Expert RA, NKR and NRA. Their ratings reflect the creditworthiness of Russian banks in rubles. Banks are divided into reliability groups, within groups they are ranked by ratings, and if ratings are equal, by assets**.
The Forbes editors would like to thank the rating agency Expert RA for their assistance in preparing the rating.
* According to the requirement of Roskomnadzor, when preparing materials about a special operation in eastern Ukraine, all Russian media are required to use information only from official sources of the Russian Federation. We cannot publish materials in which the ongoing operation is called an “attack,” “invasion,” or “declaration of war,” unless this is a direct quote (Article 57 of the Federal Law on the Media). In case of violation of the requirement, the media may be fined in the amount of 5 million rubles, and the publication may also be blocked.
** Data on net assets – Banki.ru. All data as of 01/01/2024.
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