The Central Bank proposed to divide systemically significant banks into groups
The Bank of Russia plans to change the procedure for classifying banks as systematically significant credit organizations (SZKO), taking into account not only the volume of credit and deposit bases, as it is now, but a larger number of criteria. In addition, systematically significant banks will be divided into groups, allowances to the capital sufficiency standard, now uniform for all North -West II, will be differentiated. Experts note that the new technique can significantly increase the number of SZKO, even banks that are not included in the TOP-50 in capital and assets will be able to get into their number.
On May 22, the Bank of Russia published an advisory report with the new concept of the methodology for determining the SZKO. According to the document, systematically significant banks are supposed to be divided into five groups and introduce its allowance for each of them to the capital sufficiency standard. Today, all SZKO should apply the same allowances for systemic significance, but, according to the new concept, the more significant the bank, the greater the allowance will be laid for it. It is preliminary proposed to set them in the amount of 0.5–2.5% of assets, balanced taking into account risk. Initially, this allowance was 1%, but in 2022 the Central Bank reduced it to 0%. Since 2024, in five years, it should be restored up to 1%. New allowances for various groups of banks are planned to be introduced after 2028.
Currently, SZKOs include 11 largest banks. According to the Central Bank, as of April 1, 2025, their assets exceeded 148 trillion rubles, which amounted to 77% of the assets of the entire banking sector. These include, in particular, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Alfa-Bank, as well as two banks with foreign participation-Raiffeisenbank and Unicredit-Bank.
The regulator notes that in general, Russian banks differ greatly in the size and structure of assets, business models, the number of customers, regional development and other factors. According to the Central Bank, “in order to avoid systemic risks, it is necessary, firstly, to differentiate the SZKO among themselves, and secondly, to establish higher allowances for more significant organizations.”
It is assumed that banks will be an assessment of systemic significance in two stages and the first will be similar to the current one, which determines its assets and obligations. But if aggregate assets are now evaluated, then with a new approach it is proposed to differentiate them to corporate, mortgage, consumer and interbank loans. The obligations to individuals and legal entities, on the contrary, are proposed to unite, but to single out a number of other obligations – insurance, pension, etc. At the second stage, banks will be evaluated by “differentiating criteria”, among which the number of active customers, the importance of the payment market, the volume of undigested clients of customers, activity in the interbank market and ecosystemicity. With the help of these additional criteria, the systemic significance of the bank itself and the group in which it will be assigned will be determined.
Market participants appreciated the idea of dividing systematically significant banks into groups and introduce differentiated allowances as a logical one. According to the first deputy chairman of the board of the Sovcombank Sergey Sobimsky, the current approach based on a limited list of criteria does not take into account the rapid development of digital banking, the platform economy and other services. “Differentiated allowances are fair: they stimulate large players accountable, and flexible criteria (ecosystems, payment services) can expand the SZKO list, turning on“ secretly significant “banks,” he says. According to him, the differentiated approach makes regulation adaptive, given not only the size of the bank, but also its role in specific segments, which is critically important in a highly competitive market with the growing role of digital services. The head of the group of ratings of financial institutions, ARRA Valery Piven, believes that the expansion of the list of criteria can allow taking into account the risks that the potential reduction in the creditworthiness of individual large banks that are not related to the SZKO is for the financial system. “Particular attention will be paid to banks that attract the funds of legal entities that are active participants in the payments market and others,” he explains.
At the same time, the MVA-Professor of the Digital Finance of the RANEPA, Aleksey Volukov, notes that differentiated allowances for different SZKO groups will limit the capabilities of large banks for rapid development. “The largest participants in the banking market due to the accounting of banking groups and“ daughters ”will be assigned to the highest groups and will be forced to comply with the standards with the highest allowances,” says Konstantin Borodulin, managing director of financial institutions of financial institutions.
Experts believe that with a high degree of probability the number of SZKO will increase. According to Konstantin Borodulin, accounting of banking groups, ecosystems will expand the list of SZKO at the expense of banks from the TOP-50 and, possibly, the top 100. At the same time, according to Mr. Voilukov, in the first group there can be only one bank in general, ”his influence on the economy is very large and“ restrain its development, in the logic of the Central Bank, will be useful for competition in the banking system. ”
