What’s new in the annual report of the Bank of Russia – Economics – Kommersant

The annual report of the Central Bank for the most part does not contain fundamentally new data. The Bank of Russia mainly comments on its actions in the past year, known in communications, some previously unknown information is given in the comments on the balance sheet of the Bank of Russia certified by the audit of CATR LLC (brand B1) and FinExpertiza LLC.

In the report, the figures of the formal after-tax loss of the Central Bank for 2022 are important (722 billion rubles, of which 382 billion rubles are the financial consequences of the sale of the sanitized Otkritie Bank and the Ministry of Bank, the rest is the revaluation of foreign assets, while the report on the financial results of the Central Bank for 2022 contains information on expenses for 671 billion rubles on transactions with securities, foreign currency and precious metals – in 2021 the Central Bank did not make these expenses at all) and a statement on the storage of the Central Bank’s reserves in gold and cash foreign currency on the territory of the Russian Federation. The assets of the Central Bank as a bank over the past year decreased from 52 trillion rubles. to 47 trillion rubles, liabilities also decreased from 36 trillion rubles. up to 34.5 trillion rubles.

At the same time, by 1.8 trillion rubles. loans and deposits on the balance sheet of the Central Bank increased (in the commentary, the regulator explained the growth in this indicator by 63%, despite the total liquidity surplus, by demand “from individual credit institutions”), funds in accounts with the Central Bank decreased from 19 trillion rubles. up to 15.5 trillion rubles. (this is a direct consequence of the spending by the government of the National Wealth Fund, in addition to the exchange rate revaluation of a number of assets of the NWF – spending by the NWF increased liquidity in the banking system, and the Central Bank had to carry out additional operations to absorb liquidity, under this item the debt of the Bank of Russia increased by 2.1 trillion rubles.) . But the volume of cash in circulation grew from 14 trillion rubles. up to 16.4 trillion rubles. The Bank of Russia explains the latter by the “growth of uncertainty” in the eyes of both the population and business.

As a result, the estimated capital of the Bank of Russia at the end of 2022 (taking into account the loss of previous years on the balance sheet – it almost did not grow over the year, this is 1.1 trillion rubles) amounted to 12.7 trillion rubles. against 16.2 trillion rubles. a year ago.

Dmitry Butrin