They put an end to the issue of Qiwi Bank debts

Tochka Bank raised RUB 200 million. through the DFA to finance part of the repurchase of Qiwi Bank’s obligations to its clients. Earlier, Tochka JSC announced that it intended to use 8 billion rubles to buy out Qiwi Bank’s liabilities from its clients, with new funds allocated additionally. According to experts, DFAs have advantages over classical methods of raising funds if they are needed quickly.

Atomize organized financing for Tochka Bank through the issuance of digital financial assets (DFAs), the Information Systems Operator (OIS) told Kommersant. The issuer was Tochka Commercial Financing LLC. The transaction amount will be 200 million rubles. The maturity of the DFA is almost ten months, while interest income will be paid monthly, and its value is tied to the key rate increased by 1 percentage point (currently 17% per annum).

On February 21, the Central Bank announced the revocation of Qiwi Bank’s license. “We are experiencing increased demand for supply chain finance from small business wholesalers. Some of them lost liquidity, this disrupted the usual course of affairs in purchasing chains and liquidity,” said Alexander Troitsky, leader of the investment department at Tochka. The issuance of the DFA helped urgently finance disrupted supply chains and immediately restore their liquidity, he said. Among the recipients of funds were suppliers of retail chains, participants in government contracts, sellers on marketplaces, cargo carriers and small wholesale companies. In the future, Tochka’s clients will be able to directly get acquainted with the capabilities of DFA thanks to the upcoming integration with Atomize, noted the company’s CEO Alexey Ilyasov.

These 200 million rubles. are not included in the 8 billion rubles that Tochka pays from its own funds, the bank explained to Kommersant. There are no specific figures for the following transactions yet, they indicated there.

According to experts, DFAs have advantages over classical methods of raising funds if they are needed quickly. “The issue of DFAs can be done more quickly than raising a loan or placing bonds,” explains Alexandra Verolainen, managing director for structured finance ratings at Expert RA. “DFAs do not require disclosure of information by issuers, and also do not require registration of the decision on the issue with the Bank of Russia or on the exchange”. According to Denis Leonov, head of the debt capital markets department at BCS CIB, a fully prepared issuer with a decent credit rating can make a fairly quick deal in a few business days, and raising several billion will not be a problem for him, while for a debutant issuer the process may take several months.

This is their advantage and at the same time a disadvantage that limits the possibilities of wide market attraction, notes Alexandra Verolainen. At the same time, in her opinion, for a company without a credit rating, a margin of 1 percentage point above the key rate of the Central Bank (16%) is a very favorable condition for raising funds.

However, DFAs have not yet been popular in the financial market, says Gennady Fofanov, president of the InvoiceCafe investment platform. In the current situation with Tochka Bank, this is rather an innovation that arose due to a coincidence, he adds. “I believe that the choice in favor of DFAs rather than bonds was made because the issue of refunding funds to Qiwi Bank clients is very urgent and related to reputation, so bonds would not be suitable here: there simply are not several months to submit documents to the exchange and register the issue etc.,” agrees managing partner of the Veta expert group Ilya Zharsky.

On the other hand, investors who may be interested in purchasing DFAs need to understand that the ease of issuing these instruments is directly proportional to the higher risks of issuer default, including since the instrument is innovative, Mr. Zharsky concludes.

Ksenia Dementieva, Vitaly Gaidaev, Ksenia Kulikova