Suchergebnisse

Recently, the Bank of Russia has begun to actively fight against the balance sheet falsification in banking and withdrew every third bank's license during the last four years. In the majority of cases, the regulator revealed hidden "holes" in the capital of bankrupted financial institutions; the total sum of already revealed negative capital amounts to -2,1% of Russian GDP in 2015. However, until now the process of clearing the banking system has affected only small and medium-sized banks (with few exceptions). What happens if this process touches on larger banks? How many new episodes of "holes" in the capital can we face in the near future and what is their potential size in case of detection? Our estimations, based on Heckman selection models, show that from 300 to400 out of 641 Russian banks that were active in the mid-2016 might already hide "holes" in the capital from -3,6% to -6,8% of GDP. The analysis at the level of different groups of banks - among the top 30 in terms of assets, other banks from the first hundred and banks outside the top 100 - shows that the greatest loss is localized in the last group.

This paper analyzes how banks react on the interest rate policy of their rivals when the industry-wide price competition is strengthening over different phases of business cycle in both retail and corporate segments of credit market in Russia. Our estimations, based on the models proposed in the literature on New Industrial Empirical Organization (NIEO), show that price wars are taking place from time to time in the retail as well as in the corporate segments of Russian credit market; more often - in periods of macroeconomic crisis, and are started by the banks from the top-30 group (in terms of assets, excluding Sberbank), the most warlike group within the Russian banking system. During the non-crisis periods banks are turning to facilitate collusions. The retail segment of credit market appears to be significantly more competitive as compared to the corporate one.

This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of banking competition on the market for loans in the Russian banking system connecting it to various phases of the business cycle in Russia. Our focus is on price competition, which is measured through the Lerner index of market power. Using Lerner index, we investigate, first, the levels of interest rate markups in the market for loans; second, the influence of these markups on credit activity of banks as well as their relation with the size of banks. Next, we compare our measured Lerner index with three additional competition indicators, i.e. H- statistics of Panzar and Rosse (mix of price and quantity competition), Boone indicator (quantity and quality competition) and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (quantity competition). For our comparisons, we choose the time period of 2005 Q1 to2012 Q4, i.e. starting from one boom on the market for loans and ending with another boom so that between them there is one episode of macroeconomic and systemic banking crisis that could substantially change the strength of competition. Our estimations show that the impact of competition on credit activity of banks is nonlinear - when price competition is too strict or too weak the credit activity of banks becomes slower. Before the crisis of 2008-2009 increases of both price and quantity competition took place; however, during the crisis these competition improvements were offset by uneven access of banks to refinancing resources and the deterioration of borrowers' creditworthiness that entailed the rise of risk premium in interest rates on loans. After the crisis, price competition turned back to upward trend again stimulated by the growing boom on the market for retail loans, whereas quantity competition remained rather constrained.

Our analysis documents that the existence of hidden "holes" in the capital of not yet failed banks - while creating intertemporal pressure on the actual level of capital - leads to changing of maturity of loans supplied rather than to contracting of their volume. Long-term loans decrease, whereas short-term loans rise - and, what is most remarkably, by approximately the same amounts. Standardly, the higher the maturity of loans the higher the credit risk and, thus, the more loan loss reserves (LLP) banks are forced to create, increasing the pressure on capital. Banks that already hide "holes" in the capital, but have not yet faced with license withdrawal, must possess strong incentives to shorten the maturity of supplied loans. On the one hand, it raises the turnovers of LLP and facilitates the flexibility of capital management; on the other hand, it allows increasing the speed of shifting of attracted deposits to loans to related parties in domestic or foreign jurisdictions. This enlarges the potential size of ex post revealed "hole" in the capital and, therefore, allows us to assume that not every loan might be viewed as a good for the economy: excessive short-term and insufficient long-term loans can produce the source for future losses.

The paper describes the evolution of macroeconomic theory in the XX century and the development of empirical models for applied macroeconomic forecasting. A comparison of modern structural and non-structural methods for macroeconomic forecasting is made. We consider the experience of macroeconomic forecasting in Russia and reveal its weaknesses and prospects for improvement.

The stability of Russian banking sector is threatened by three negative tendencies - overheating of the credit market, significant decrease of banks capital adequacy ratios, and growing problems associated with banks lending to affiliated non-financial corporations. The co-existence of these processes reflects the crisis of the model of private investments in Russian banking sector, which was observed during the last 20 years. This paper analyzes the measures of the Bank of Russia undertaken to maintain the stability of the banking sector using the methodology of credit risk stress-testing. Based on this methodology we conclude that the Bank of Russias actions can prevent the overheating of the credit market, but they can also lead to undesirable effects: further expansion of the government ownership in Russian banking sector and substitution of domestic credit supply by cross-border corporate borrowings. The later weakens the competitive positions of Russian banks. We propose a set of measures to harmonize the prudential regulation of banks. Our suggestions rely on design and further implementation of the programs aimed at developing new markets for financial services provided by Russian banks to their corporate and retail customers. The estimated effects of proposed policy measures are both the increase in profitability and capitalization of Russian banks and the decrease of banks demand for government support.

Since 2010 the issues of development of retail payment systems in Russia have been discussed by the general public. But there is still a lack of assessments of possible macroeconomic effects. In our research we offer systematization of positive effects generated by broad implementation of retail payment systems and analyze the key tendencies in substitution of cash payments by non-cash payment instruments. We compare both potential of monetary policy and specific technical measures (growth in use of payment infrastructure, etc.) in stimulating households demand for retail payment systems in Russia. Using econometric analysis we conclude that technical measures are more effective. Besides, they are associated with lower macroeconomic risks in middle-term perspective.

The article analyzes factors that affect growth of the share of non-performing loans in the loan portfolio of Russian banks and proposes approaches for this share forecasting on the basis of dynamics of macroeconomic indicators. It also deals with methodological issues of remote stress-test of lending agencies. Using the results of conducted stress-test of Russian banks the authors assess their perspective capital needs in 2010 and estimate the share of government assistance in capital injections. Furthermore, the authors define the scale of vulnerable banks groups in the Russian banking sector.

This review examines the impact of the global financial cycle on small open economies and compares the effectiveness of various monetary and macroprudential policies in the presence of global financial cycle. First, we provide a classification of the channels through which the monetary policy of the world financial regulators (US Federal Reserve, ECB), which largely determines the global financial cycle, is transmitted to small open economies: the channel for interest rates differential, the channel for the activities of global financial institutions, and the channel for commodity prices. Second, by analyzing the arguments of supporters and critics of the monetary policy trilemma, we show how the literature comes to the conclusion that inflation targeting policy is still one of the most optimal solutions for achieving the goals of price and macroeconomic stability but fails to ensure financial stability. The latter requires active coordination with macroprudential policy measures. These conclusions are supported by the analysis of case studies of specific countries (Russia, New Zealand, Brazil, Turkey, etc.), which attempted to mitigate negative consequences of the 2007—2009 global financial crisis.