About 15 banks may leave the Russian market in 2024

During 2024, the number of Russian banks may decrease by 15, the Expert RA rating agency expects. Only in February, by decision of the Central Bank, two credit institutions lost the right to work. There may be other reasons for banks leaving the market – as a result of acquisition or voluntary surrender of a license. But the regulator has already made it clear that its focus will be on everyone who conducts high-risk operations. They were the reason for the revocation of Qiwi Bank’s license.

Kommersant got acquainted with the Expert RA review, which expects that about 15 banks may leave the market in 2024 (currently 322 banks have valid licenses). As Ksenia Yakushkina, director of the agency for bank ratings, explained to Kommersant, about half of the forecast number of banks leaving the market will be due to license revocations, the rest will be due to other reasons, such as voluntary surrender of licenses, planned reorganization, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) ). So far, one such transaction is known – the sale of HKF Bank to Sovcombank (see “Kommersant” dated February 16).

Revocations of licenses, according to Expert RA, may affect mainly banks outside the top 100, many of which “do not have strong points of business growth.”

In 2023, licenses were not revoked at all; only three banks ceased operations due to reorganization. In 2022, the Central Bank revoked three licenses, in 2021 – 26. Reorganizations in the period 2011–2021 were on average ten per year, licenses were surrendered voluntarily less often.

Over the past two months of 2024, the Central Bank withdrew two players from the market at once. The departure of Qiwi Bank had a systemic impact on many other credit institutions, including large ones that used its payment services (see “Kommersant” dated February 22). The revocation of the Hephaestus license from the fourth hundred went unnoticed.

Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Olga Polyakova, at a meeting with bankers on March 1, explained that the main focus of supervision this year will be “high-risk transactions” that the Central Bank identifies between individuals (the so-called P2P using drops – dummies who accept money from a shadow bank on their card). business and criminal schemes, cash them out and transfer them to others, receiving a percentage of the transaction for this). “One of the banks that was actively involved in this type of operation, unfortunately, did not listen to our recommendations and did not respond to our restrictive measures. And as a result, he lost his license,” she emphasized, expressing hope that the banks themselves will stop such operations.

The example of Qiwi Bank was also given by the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, when speaking about the new “supervisory ratings” (the so-called assessment of the economic situation; the bank’s rating will probably affect the rate of contributions to the DIA fund). “Involvement in dubious transactions can also threaten the interests of creditors and depositors,” she noted. “And the example of Qiwi Bank is indicative in this sense.”

According to the head of the Association of Participants in the Electronic Money and Money Transfer Market, Viktor Dostov, in most cases, identifying droppers is not difficult for banks. “There are characteristic operations of the same type (to put it simply – a large number of specific types of P2P transfers). However, droppers are gradually learning to “hide,” and banks will have to improve their algorithms,” he notes.

Financial expert Andrei Barkhota believes that the attention of the Central Bank will be attracted by “banks from the second hundred in terms of assets, which, among other things, are actively engaged in converting money into crypto-wallets and transiting funds as part of illegal circulation.” Thus, he clarifies, the risk zone is for credit institutions whose business has a low share of lending, but has a lot of liquid assets on their balance sheet, including money in correspondent accounts and securities: “In the classical banking business, liquid assets, as a rule, do not bring income. In essence, such players are engaged in the transit of liquidity, receiving commission income from the provision of transaction services.” At the same time, the expert emphasizes, small players are losing competition in the lending segment to larger ones both in terms of capital and market share, which “forces them to go into other, non-classical niches for banks.”

Olga Sherunkova