Page 62 - RusRPTApr19

dollars. The share of rubles in bilateral trade is only at 3.8%, while yuan accounts for 8%. On March 27 deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak also said that his ministry is not yet ready to issue bonds in CHY, as there was no suitable platform for that. Earlier this year the ministry said a CHY issue was possible.
Russian Forbes has published an annual rating of the most reliable banks. Unicredit took the first place, having bypassed last year’s rating leader Rosbank, which is only in third place this year. The list is based on assessments of the largest Russian and international rating agencies (Expert RA, ACRA, Fitch, S&P, Moody's). It is divided into five groups. The first one includes the most reliable credit organizations with BBB- and BB + (Fitch) ratings. As in 2018, the subsidiaries of foreign banks and the largest state- owned banks hold leading positions. The top 5, besides Unicredit and Rosbank, also includes Raiffeisenbank , Sberbank and VTB. Forbes included Citibank, ING Bank (Eurasia), Nordea, HSBC and Credit Agricole in the top ten of the most reliable. Of the 100 largest banks, the least reliable are NS Bank, Lanta-Bank, Fora-Bank, International Financial Club AKB and Aresbank. Forbes notes that a “ cleanup” has made the banking system more transparent. "The surviving banks are ready to show the market that they have no skeletons in the closet, and began to cooperate more with rating agencies," concludes the publication.
Central Bank of Russia (CBR) will update its blacklist of bankers by the end of March as the regulator continues its crackdown on banking malfeasance and dodgy clients, as part of its sector clean up, the central bank said on March 5.
The regulator has started a list of bankers who are banned from the banking business for life, after they have been caught stealing money from their institution and other crimes.
Banking scams have become widespread where owners would lend themselves and associates cheap loans using their deposits that were constantly restructured and never repaid, as bne IntelliNews reported in 2017 “Russia’s great daylight bank robbery.” The most egrarious example is Bank of Moscow, which needed a $15bn bailout after its owner Andrei Borodin fled to London where he now lives in luxury.
The CBR is in the midst of a banking sector clean up that is coming into its end game as the number of banks in Russia fell below 500 in November last year.
The CBR is switching its focus from crooks to a wider list of people who are simply bad bankers and dodgy clients. The blacklist will be amended to only include clients who have committed “high-risk operations.” Banks can refuse clients service for various reasons. They report these refusals to RosFinMonitoring, from which the CBR compiles a blacklist of “suspicious clients” and distributes it to all banks.
The blacklist in its current iteration has been highly problematic, reports BMB Russia. “Once a business lands on the list—often without receiving any real explanation—it is effectively (although not entirely) cut off from financial services in Russia. The CBR’s proposal sounds like it should ease some of the burden on business, but I wouldn’t count on it. As companies have noted,
62 RUSSIA Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com