Compensation for frozen Soviet deposits: who can be paid and how much

The State Duma has prepared several options for compensating Soviet citizens’ deposits in Sberbank. The history of the issue and the essence of the new proposals are in the Kommersant information.

How did the deposit problem arise?

According to the calculations of the Central Bank of Russia, the number of deposits in the USSR as of January 1, 1991 amounted to 220 million, their average size was 1,734 rubles. In January 1991, as part of the Pavlovsk monetary reform, all deposits were frozen, prohibiting citizens from withdrawing more than 500 rubles from their accounts. per month (the reform is named after the USSR Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov). When deposits were unfrozen and depositors were able to freely use their savings, they lost their previous purchasing power. According to some estimates, at the end of 1991 it was only 2–6% of what was recorded before the freeze. Many investors regarded the incident as a “robbery.” In July 2016, the head of Sberbank, German Gref, also stated that Sberbank of the USSR and its depositors “were robbed by the absolutely unqualified policy of the authorities at that time.”

How they tried to solve the problem

In May 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the law “On the restoration and protection of savings of the population of the Russian Federation” as compensation. In it, deposits in Sberbank until June 20, 1991 (on this day Sberbank of the USSR became a commercial organization), deposits under personal insurance contracts and government securities of the country until January 1, 1992 are recognized as part of the Russian government debt. They are called guaranteed savings and amounted to a total of 345.54 billion Soviet rubles.

Initially, it was planned to transfer all debts on citizens’ savings into securities (targeted debt obligations, CDs) and regularly index them to the cost of the minimum consumer basket. Especially for this purpose, in July 1996, the law “On the procedure for establishing the debt value of a unit of nominal value of a target debt obligation of the Russian Federation” was adopted. Since 2003, the Russian State Duma has regularly frozen this law due to lack of funding.

Since 1996, payments of preliminary compensation began for certain groups of the population, at that time – to elderly people no younger than 1916. Later they were joined by disabled people of the first and second groups, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, parents of children with disabilities and fallen military personnel. Over the years, the compensation coefficient ranged from 40% to 3.4% of the deposit amount, so some experts called such payments measures to support the population, and not full compensation for lost savings.

At the end of 2009, the government adopted a decree that established three times compensation for all investors born in 1945 and no older than 1945 and two times for those born after 1946. The social status of the depositor no longer mattered. But the return rate remained low, since the amounts are calculated based on the face value of money (that is, 100 rubles in 1991 is equivalent to 100 rubles in 2023). According to the then calculations “Kommersant”, full settlement of pre-reform deposits was guaranteed only by twenty-fold compensation.

What are they offering now?

In September 2023, the government submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing to once again postpone the final decision on the payment of compensation until 2027. According to deputies’ calculations, if the project is not accepted, 61.8 trillion rubles will be required for settlements with investors. in 2024, 64.2 trillion rubles – in 2025, 66.8 trillion rubles – in 2026. According to the draft federal budget for 2024–2026, Russia’s income is almost half that. In 2024 they will amount to 35 trillion rubles, in 2025 – 33.5 trillion rubles, in 2026 – 34.1 trillion rubles.

In October, a parliamentary working group proposed several solutions to the problem, including suspending the project indefinitely or starting payments only from citizens 78 and older. According to Vladimir Senin, a member of the financial market committee, about 4 million affected depositors are alive in this age category, and payments to them will require less money – about 7.3 billion rubles.

How and to whom compensation will be paid in 2023

Instead of full compensation, a partial refund of funds from the Soviet contribution is possible. In 2023, the procedure for payments is determined by the same decree of the Russian government dated December 25, 2009 “On the procedure for making compensation payments to citizens of the Russian Federation on deposits in Sberbank of the Russian Federation in 2010–2023.” The following may now apply for compensation:

• investors born before 1991;
• heirs or citizens who paid for the funeral, if the owner of the deposit died from 2001 to 2023 and at the time of death was a citizen of Russia.

Payments are not made if the depositor does not have Russian citizenship, compensation for deposits has previously been fully paid, the deposit is opened outside the current territory of Russia or closed before December 31, 1991.

The depositor submits an application for compensation at a Sberbank branch along with two documents:

• passport;
• savings book or statement of its loss (for existing deposits).

If an heir applies for compensation, he must present:

• your passport;
• death certificate of the investor;
• certificate of inheritance;
• confirmation of the depositor’s citizenship at the time of death;
• savings books (if deposits are still not closed).

The amount of compensation is calculated based on the date of birth of the depositor or heir, the year in which the deposit was closed, and the face value of the money (100 rubles in 1991 is equivalent to 100 rubles in 2023).

The maximum possible compensation is triple the amount of the deposit as of June 20, 1991. The calculation rule is simple. The older the investor and the later he closed the deposit, the higher the compensation. If a depositor born in 1961 kept 548 rubles in his book. (which was equal to the average monthly salary) and closed the deposit in 1992, the amount of his compensation will be slightly less than 658 current rubles. If the investor has not yet closed such an account, he will receive 1096 rubles. The payment amount can be calculated in advance using a special calculator on the Sberbank website (located in the footer of the page).