Putin: increase of financial independence of Russia came at the right time

The increase in the level of financial independence of Russia happened on time, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Chairman of the Board VTB Andrey Kostin.

“What you said about raising the level of independence, sovereignty, perhaps, happened in time, bearing in mind the negative trends that are growing in the banking system of the United States itself,” the President said, his words leads Kremlin press office.

In response, Kostin said that now “we need to learn how to work in a new way”, and also noted that it is possible to rebuild the financial system “to a large extent” in a few years.

At a meeting with the head of state, he also said that VTB is actively engaged in the creation of a new infrastructure for settlements in rubles and in the currencies of friendly countries. According to Kostin, the bank has expertise and infrastructure, as it is present in the largest Asian countries, in particular in China, India and the CIS countries.

Kostin added that the credit institution “developed a certain immunity” after the imposition of sanctions against it. “You look at what is happening now in the United States: in fact, the biggest financial banking crisis since 2008, and it is already spreading to Europe. This is exactly what we talked about, that the sanctions are double-edged,” said the head of the VTB.

July 6 Managing Director Alfa bank Vladimir Verkhoshinsky at the Financial Congress of the Central Bank declaredthat the sanctions turned out to be not such a big systemic problem for the banking sector. According to him, “systemically” the sanctions brought less “destruction” than the COVID-19 pandemic or the launch of the “Fast Payment System” (FPS) by the Bank of Russia.

In April, Vedomosti wrote that in 2022 the net loss of the entire group VTB reached 613 billion rubles. according to IFRS against 327 billion rubles. profit a year earlier. The bank itself received 757 billion rubles. net loss (938.5 billion rubles before taxes) according to Russian standards against 186.3 billion rubles. The main reasons for the group’s losses were, in particular, losses from the disposal of subsidiaries due to the loss of control over VTB Bank Europe and the English VTB Capital plc., expenses on operations with foreign currency and precious metals, etc.