Page 71 - RusRPTSept19

were nationalised in 2017. According to Pozdyshev, the final amount will depend on the success of recent lawsuits that the CBR has filed against former shareholders of the bailed banks that amount to a total of RUB750bn- 800bn. The CBR has extracted the toxic assets into a "bad asset" fund that was established on the basis of bailed Trust (Trast) Bank. Out of the RUB2.4 trillion of the assets the regulator counts to recover about RUB965bn or 40%, the central banker said. Previous reports claimed that the CBR expected the recovery rate to be between 10% and 20%. Pozdyshev also believes that about RUB250bn could be recovered in the possible sale of the FC Otkritie. As reported by bne IntelliNews, Otkritie complies with all the capital requirements, turned in a profit in the first quarter of 2019, and recently came back to the bond market.
Russia's top gas producer Gazprom and a raft of other major firms have added to calls for the banking sector to use domestic ratings in implementing new financial regulations, saying this would ease pressure on banks and cut lending rates. Officials have challenged the way the central bank is instructing lenders to comply with new Basel III regulations. The finance ministry says the capital buffers banks require under the rules should be set according to ratings by domestic agencies, while the central bank wants to use its own in-house assessments. "It is very hard to forecast how accessible the external market will be for Russian borrowers for political reasons, so the development of our own financial market, including rating agencies, is timely," Gazprom Deputy Chief Executive Famil Sadygov told Reuters. "We believe that using national ratings would make it possible to significantly lower pressure on (banking) capital, having a positive impact on the cost of borrowing, both for borrowers and banks."
8.1.8 Sberbank news
Russia's largest bank Sberbank is trailing behind other state-controlled systemic banks of BRICS economies in terms of macro profile and loan portfolio quality, but beats the peers in terms of profitability, according to the report of Moody's Investor Service cited by Vedomosti daily on August 6.
71 RUSSIA Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com