How the Bank of Russia learned to fight private banks

The last collapse, which caught the regulator by surprise, is Peresvet Bank in 2016.
"Perhaps the last case, which caught us unawares, is Peresvet Bank. It was a surprise: first we found out that the bank's presidency had virtually disappeared, fled abroad, and only then began to understand the situation, "Dmitry Tulin, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, told Vedomosti that he had been in charge of supervising the block about a year and a half ago. Then the chairman of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina announced the beginning of its reform, the start was given in October 2016 and was accompanied by both resignations in the leadership of the regulator, and structural changes and redistribution of the functional.

The case, which Tulin recalls, occurred in the autumn of 2016 - in October the Central Bank introduced a temporary administration in Peresvet. A week before, the chairman of the board of the bank, Alexander Shvets disappeared, and a few days later the bank limited the issuance of deposits of individuals, and then stopped payments altogether. The Central Bank decided to repair Peresvet - its salvation was handled by the All-Russian Bank for Regional Development (RRDB) controlled by Rosneft, the regulator allocated 99.8 billion rubles for this. In the rescue of the bank also had to participate its largest creditors - most of their funds - 85% - was converted into the bank's capital.

Shelf life - three months

"By that time, we had already discussed the effectiveness of supervision for some time," Tulin said, and in early 2017 set a goal: the information in the supervisory dossier should be complete and qualitative - banks should not leave the market for reasons that were not contained in the dossier on them three months before the collapse. " Tulin observes that three months is the minimum.

The Central Bank "examined within itself" the case of "Peresvet" - why the supervision did not predict such an outcome in advance, he says: "In general, these are the consequences of the system of supervision that was before, mistakes and violations of ethics from specific employees of supervision. There were family and material crossings, which influenced the professional position that ranked employees of supervision in relation to this bank. "

All other supervisory cases, except Peresvet, were predicted, although there was not always enough evidence to allow the regulator to act earlier, Tulin assures. And all the psychological portraits of the owners of banks, which were in the submission of the regulator, on the whole proved to be real. "We expected the most bitter resistance on the part of the owners of Ugra, as well as the predecessor of Promsvyazbank. The reality turned out to be, perhaps, somewhat brighter, but on the whole, within the limits of expectations, "he sums up.

Debriefing

Since that moment, the control in the Central Bank for such things has become much better, and the practice of debriefing has become permanent, Tulin says. Meetings on the analysis of supervisory cases are now held regularly, they include junior command staff, bank supervisors, and management - heads of departments and vice-presidents, Tulin says. "We analyze the current situation, the risks of financial stability, forecasts for the [development] of the situation, strengths and weaknesses in the business model. The management receives detailed information about the banks, and the subordinates receive a kind of master class. Thus, uniform approaches are formed in analytical work, and this creates equal approaches to all banks, "explains the first deputy chairman. "Participation in the analysis of flights is included in my personal KPI as the head of the banking block in the Central Bank," he adds.

To see a doctor

However, when it is possible to stabilize the work of banks with serious problems, there are still fewer than crashes, that is, reviews of licenses or sanitation. Nevertheless, when the Central Bank managed to prevent a fall, according to Tulin, there have been dozens in recent years.


For a year and a half, much has already been done, says the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank: centralization of supervision is coming to an end, although there is a backlog of 3-6 months from the original deadlines. As a result, almost everything is now concentrated in Moscow and distributed among three departments - banking supervision, supervision of systemically important credit institutions and the current banking supervision service (STBN) with regional representatives. In addition, the regulator has a risk analysis service (SAR).

"The current banking supervision service and the department of systemically important credit organizations are a front office, like doctors of general practice. SARS are specialized specialists - cardiologists, ultrasound specialists. They give their opinions to general practitioners, but the whole responsibility lies with the latter, "Tulin explains the new approach.

The rehabilitation institute was also reformed - now the CB itself is engaged in sanations through the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund (FCCS) under its control, and soon the regulator will be able to sanitize the insurers. "This is largely a solution to the accumulated systemic problems that have been formed for two decades," Tulin said.

"We still have to admit that before the Central Bank closed its eyes to many things and somewhere it was possible to negotiate with someone," says the top manager of the average bank. Now, according to him, what is happening is accelerating in the course of the previous years. "Of the notable qualitative and positive changes - the Central Bank staff began to come to the field more often, it's better than when they look remotely and on the basis of this draw conclusions, sometimes not much in touch with reality. There is an opportunity to show and explain everything, "- says the source Vedomosti.

In general, the formal approach is almost gone - the regulator is ready to listen and hear, he agrees to meetings, the head of a large private bank agrees. "This is not a conversation about the fact that someone in the Central Bank promises to relax, it's a banal opportunity to come and explain. But someone, of course, can not get to the people directly from the Central Bank, and then there can be a formalism in solving some issues, "he says.

Work with the lever

Under the formalism, reserve issues still often fall, says the top manager of the average bank, noting that it is high time to change the regulation in this part. Somewhere according to formal criteria for frankly bad assets that will never return, until the last keep the reserves at 51%, he says, and somewhere on quite normal assets - 21%. At the same time, if the borrower does not return the loan, he most likely will not return it completely, Vedomosti's interlocutor notes: "I would like a dynamic model that could take into account the changing financial position of the borrower and link it with the repayment schedule" .

Reserves are squeezed at own expense, and shareholders demand a return on capital, as a result, the bank enters into more expensive deals, and these are increased risks - again reserves and again a shortage of capital, says the head of a large private bank: "This is a vicious circle, you can not work only on capital outlays. You need to work with a lever. "

Proactive supervision, which would deal with the early warning of problems, has not yet been achieved - it can be seen in relatively recent cases: it happens that they simply overlooked, the head of a large private bank thinks. At the same time, when a situation has already taken shape, its supervision is more or less adequate, there are good ways to solve the problems, he notes. "The bad debts bank had to be done in 2014-2015. Time has passed, and maintaining problems on the balance sheets is worth the money, which again only increases their scale, "says the top manager of the average bank.


Negative factor for banks is that the level of competencies of ordinary employees of the Central Bank has clearly not increased, and maybe even decreased - many new people without many years of experience in supervision, without which errors are unavoidable, the top manager of one of the banks believes. "Of course, they are taking some tests for proficiency there, but the instructions continue to come with mistakes," he notes.

Much has yet to be done, Tulin admits: "It's one thing to build new business processes, the other is to change the culture of supervision no less."

Fresh blood

The Central Bank really cleaned up its ranks. Approximately one third of the supervisors did not get into the STBN, Tulin says: they underwent professional and psychophysical testing. Now there are 588 people in STBN, but the personnel continues to monitor, Tulin says: ideally, there should be a fusion of people from specialists from the market and historically the employees of the Central Bank. However, it turned out that in the SAR all 237 people from the banking industry, because the regulator did not find such competence within himself, he explains.

They do not have any experience in working with the Central Bank or employees of the Management Company of the FCS, he points out. "Fresh blood is needed in the team, but there is no goal to replace all employees, this task is not worth it," Tulin said.

"For many years culture prevailed" I do not want to know anything, knowledge is a dangerous thing. " You have to answer for your knowledge. But now the culture should change and turn into "I want to know everything," Tulin says. According to him, the staff of supervision must achieve an understanding of what is happening in the wards.

The institute of commissioners, created in the crisis of 2008, did not bring much result. "We are not going to abandon the institution of commissioners - it is better to have a tool than not to have. But there have not been any qualitative changes, "Tulin admitted.

What to expect from supervision further

And then the banks are waiting for natural selection. "With people who are ready to correct the situation, it is necessary to work - this is our position. And those who are not ready, have to apply radical surveillance actions, "- warns Tulin.

Many private banks were created virtually without capital, but in those conditions it was difficult to avoid, the state was ready to close eyes to much, at any cost to give a market economy that would be impossible without banks, he recalls. Therefore, de jure banks were created with licensing, but de facto it was almost a registration procedure, Tulin admits.

For the first time, the problem of fictitious capital of the Central Bank was raised within itself in 2002-2003, and in 2004 the selection of banks for the deposit insurance system began, but then "this work still did not receive the proper impetus," Tulin says. Then the process of cleaning the sector slowed down due to the crisis of 2008.


There were cases when banks managed to replace fictitious capital with real ones, Tulin recalled, but not without pressure from the regulator: "To do this, it is necessary that shareholders have the desire and the opportunity to replenish capital, and the business model of the bank should be profitable."

Tulin expects that civilized supervision, when dialogue is built between the supervisory authority and the trustees, will become the only form of work, "because those who pass the natural selection will act in this way." In the ranks of the Central Bank itself, only such people will remain, he notes.

Expensive cleaning

Clearing the sector is generally a positive process, but it is accompanied by high costs - it's expensive, says Fitch analyst Alexander Danilov. At the same time, the core of the banking system does not suffer from this: about 50% of the system's assets come from reliable banks, of which about 30% is Sberbank, and the remaining 20% ​​is a reliable private sector and foreign banks, he says. Another 20-25% fall on banks, which are supported in advance by the state, he continues. As a result, the cleanup accounted for the remaining 25%, and this does not have a big impact on the system, he concludes: "It's unlikely that this year's record will be broken by the number of banks deprived of licenses."

Already with the Central Bank you can build constructive relations, if you act openly and honestly, the head of a large private bank is sure. But there is also fear, the top manager of the average bank notes: "Few people in their right mind and sober memory will invest money in a heavily regulated business, which can not just be lost overnight, but also get a criminal liability. Yes, and open dialogue can not afford all - there are situations where you do not admit. "

Until the end of solving the accumulated problems is unlikely to succeed: until there will be inevitability of punishment for the committed acts, there will be both bankers inventing new schemes and supervision, which these schemes try to suppress, Tulin says. "This is a permanent race: a shield against the sword," he concludes.