DIA funds are not enough to pay all debts to Ugra depositors - 170 billion rubles - the Agency will borrow from the Central Bank. Deputies demand to check the Central Bank and DIA. Why did the bank, which was in the top 30, collapse?

Collapse of unprecedented scale and the largest insured event. Why did the bank "Ugra" collapse? Depositors of a credit institution, in which the Central Bank has introduced temporary administration, can receive up to 170 billion rubles in compensation. True, only 163 billion remained in the Deposit Insurance Agency, but the DIA reported that, if necessary, it would ask the Central Bank for a new loan. Meanwhile, the deputies asked the security forces to check the Central Bank and the DIA after the collapse of the bank, which was in the Top 30.

What the shareholders of Yugra Bank were doing can be explained with a simple example. Imagine that you have decided to buy an apartment. You go to friends and borrow money from them at a good interest rate, buy real estate for yourself, and when it comes time to repay debts, send creditors to the Central Bank. As a result, you have real estate, and friends got their money back with interest. The state has lost, but it is rich in our country. Eventually, he will print more. True, this can spur inflation, but who cares about such trifles? This is how the main owners of Yugra, Yuri and Alexei Khotin, father and son, did business.

This bank was a typical "vacuum cleaner" - it actively attracted depositors' money. With these funds, businessmen, as reported by the Central Bank, financed their own projects. It is possible that it was the bank's depositors who helped them buy the Moskva Hotel and other real estate. According to Forbes, in 2016 alone, entrepreneurs earned about $300 million from rent. The banking business has been successfully sinking in recent years.

Sergey StorozhenkoCEO of Storozhenko & Partners“For bankers, the situation is already so neglected - it is already going like a snowball, and it can no longer be stopped from a certain moment. The hole is accumulating, it has been accumulating for years, and to close it on our own - the amounts are such that it is simply unbearable for ordinary bankers to do this, without any state support. If someone manages to negotiate, or there are some political reasons for the bank to live like with Peresvet, then it will be. If not, then no."

In "Ugra" lay 180 billion rubles of deposits of the population and legal entities. 170 billion fall under the DIA insurance program. The agency does not have enough money, and it will probably take funds from the Central Bank, but first you need to understand the size of the hole in the bank. Analysts have already suggested that the cash gap will exceed 100 billion, and then the main question will arise: who will compensate? The bank immediately reported that its owner, Alexei Khotin, would support the organization until its full financial recovery. The Central Bank said that at the time when the provisional administration was introduced, the businessman was in the bank. At this, the meager information about the whereabouts and activities of the beneficiaries stopped coming. The head of the regulator, Elvira Nabiullina, in an exclusive interview with Business FM, said that it is too early to draw conclusions before the end of the audit, and explained why the regulator does not always have time to take action.

Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation“The interim administration is working, so I can’t talk about the size of the problem, the size of the possible hole yet. We really try to prevent problems as early as possible. But here it is important to note one more point, why we cannot always make a decision on time, even if we understand that something is wrong in the bank. We must collect formal evidence. We then go to court with our decisions, we must have formal evidence. And banks turn over assets quite often, and we are again looking for and looking for this evidence.”

Reports that the bank is experiencing problems appeared a year ago. The regulator restricted the bank from accepting funds from the public. But he went the other way: depositors received bank shares as a gift, that is, they became minority shareholders. So they got around the ban. At the same time, as Izvestia wrote, the volume of off-balance sheet deposits in Yugra could reach 75 billion rubles, and such clients may have simply lost their money. Against this background, one more message of the Central Bank surprises. The regulator, it turns out, did not monitor Ugra for questionable transactions.

To complete the picture, it is worth remembering how Vedomosti wrote about the Khotins' business a year ago. Allegedly, Aleksey Khotin never hid that he enjoyed the support of the security forces and was friends with the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov, and always behaved like a person who was not afraid of anything, sources said. Forbes, after the collapse of Yugra, found out that one of the bank's clients was the firm of the daughter of the deputy head of the FSB. The company, in particular, received an unknown amount of a loan secured by sewing machines. Probably, it was support for small businesses - a matter of national importance.

They actually came to the same conclusion: banks in the former CIS countries exist mainly for one purpose - to work "honestly" for some time, to accumulate money of gullible clients, and then quickly vacuum them abroad. In this case, they are assisted by the central banks of "independent" states, and on the other side of the cordon - Western bankers specialized in buying up stolen goods.

And if in Russia the evil Putin has already liquidated the "roof" of serial bankers in the Central Bank of Russia, and Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan is desperately fighting it, then in Ukraine, for robber bankers,
financial paradise.

Read about it under the spoiler.

According to experts from the non-governmental organization Global Financial Integrity, who study illegal financial flows in developing countries, an average of 11-12 USD billion is illegally withdrawn from Ukraine every year.

According to preliminary calculations, only in 2015, 14.2 USD billion left the country - an amount exceeding the total amount of tranches from the IMF allocated to Ukraine in the period 2014-2016 (12.3 USD billion). The lion's share of funds withdrawn from the Ukrainian economy passes through the banking system, which acts as a storage and transit point for various assets.

In December 2015, during the final press conference on the situation in the banking sector, including the fight against speculative financial structures, the head of the NBU, Valeria Gontareva, said that the regulator had successfully completed the operation to withdraw speculative and non-paying financial structures from the Ukrainian market and, they say that the situation in the banking system is improving. “We are confident that the worst is behind us and we are full of restrained optimism for the future,” she said at the time.

But the current state of affairs suggests that the conclusions of the head of the NBU were premature. Nine months of this year have passed, and we still see "falling" banks, whose bankruptcy is often accompanied by scandals related to various financial scams.

banking supervision

Without exaggeration, one of the most egregious cases of fraud this year can be called the situation that arose around PJSC Bank Mikhailovsky. This is not the largest bank among the financial institutions that fell under the sanctions of the regulator. But the revealed scheme of fraud with assets, carried out by the management of the bank in front of the NBU, makes us critical not only of the actions of bankers, but also of the reaction of the regulator, whose duties include monitoring operations in the financial market and preventing various kinds of banking speculation.

Recall that the funds of Mikhailovsky depositors were allegedly attracted to the bank. In fact, most of the money was transferred to Investment and Settlement Center LLC (“IRC”), associated with the bank. On the eve of the recognition of Mikhailovsky as insolvent, the bank's management, using access to the "operational day" program, transferred loans and "junk" accounts of the company "IRS" to the accounts of individuals in the bank, trying to hide suspicious transactions and shift responsibility to their depositors to the FGVFL.

Now the facts that led the bank to the introduction of a temporary administration are being investigated by law enforcement agencies, and the ex-chairman of the bank's board Igor Doroshenko and the former shareholder, owner of the Eldorado network and the Gulliver business center Viktor Polishchuk (in the bank his share was 92.501% of the authorized capital. - Ed.) threatens litigation with the regulator and the prosecutor's office.

In particular, on October 8, Doroshenko, the Shevchenkovsky District Court of Kyiv, extended the period of detention with the determination of the amount of bail at UAH 137.8 million. The prosecutor's office of the city of Kyiv suspects the former chairman of the board of Mikhailovsky of embezzling UAH 870 million of bank funds and bringing the bank to insolvency.

The former director of the IRTs, Mikhail Kanyuk, was also arrested in a criminal case. Deputy head of the board of the bank Denis Panfilov is wanted. Viktor Polishchuk fled the country.

A vivid example of illegal manipulations with the assets of banks that came under the supervision of the NBU is the scam with PJSC Bank Contract. The bank sold the building it owned at night (after the end of the banking day), and the curator was unable to trace and prevent the illegal transaction. “The function of the NBU that needs to be strengthened is banking supervision. On the one hand, the National Bank claims that it sees the situation in banks in real time and controls their operations, but how illusory this control is is evidenced by the situation with Mikhailovsky Bank, when technical manipulations with the bank’s IT system led to deplorable DGF will have consequences and threaten an additional burden on the long-suffering budget, ”says lawyer Yulia Kurilo, partner at the SK Group law firm.

Another example of the illusory nature of control, she said, is operations on correspondent accounts opened with banks outside of Ukraine. “The notorious Austrian Meinl Bank AG has already provided more than one Ukrainian financial institution with a rolled-back scheme, as a result of which bank accounts were emptied by scammers in a matter of seconds, as, for example, in the story with the Kievan Rus bank,” Kurilo gave an example.

The most interesting thing, according to her, is that the banking market is well aware of these notorious banks with an "ambiguous reputation" that provide services to Ukrainian financial institutions for the withdrawal of assets. Therefore, it is difficult to understand why the NBU does not work to prevent the implementation of these schemes, for example, by limiting the circle of correspondent banks for financial institutions that have a financial recovery program, including with the attraction of NBU stabilization loans.

According to the lawyer, another scheme that should have been blocked is the provision by banks of financial guarantees for obligations in favor of foreign financial institutions, as well as letters of credit. “A bank guarantee and a letter of credit are active banking operations, the bank earns on them. But this is also a high risk, which, in the absence of adequate collateral from the client, turns into significant losses for the financial institution, Kurilo explains. “And the fact that financial institutions very often use these banking instruments in questionable transactions suggests that they should become the object of close attention from the NBU. And, perhaps, one of the conditions for providing a stabilization loan to a bank should be the reliable provision of such operations (under the control of the National Bank), verification of their reality, economic feasibility, etc.”

Nikolai Likhachev, adviser to JSC Spencer & Kaufmann, also believes that in order to prevent the withdrawal of assets, the NBU should respond in time to schemes already identified in insolvent banks in order to avoid using such mechanisms in existing banks. “In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the institution of supervision of the NBU for a deeper analysis by the regulatory authorities of the activities of banks, about which there is a suspicion at the expense of their further activities,” says the lawyer.

In general, according to him, Ukraine should seriously think about the global trend of deoffshorization and join the initiative of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development regarding the automatic exchange of tax information. These steps will not prevent possible risks of the withdrawal of assets, but will make it easier to track the path of their movements and take measures to return them.

In addition, according to Likhachev, in order to prevent the outflow of assets from Ukraine, it is necessary to minimize the reasons for the withdrawal of capital. And the main step to prevent it will be the optimization of taxation: reducing the number of taxes, their rates, simplifying payment.

keep face

Representatives of the NBU keep a good face on a bad game: over the past two years, the regulator, based on the results of checking banks, filed a total of 175 statements with the police and the prosecutor's office regarding fraud facts. At the same time, the DGF filed 362 personal lawsuits against bank owners with law enforcement agencies. True, none of these cases has been brought to its logical conclusion - the punishment of the perpetrators and the return of the stolen funds have not yet occurred. “I am not yet aware of cases when the NBU would initiate the process of returning funds outside of Ukraine,” Kurilo notes.

“Ukraine does not yet have a specialized structure that would investigate violations in the banking sector. All cases are dealt with by law enforcement agencies, including cases that relate to banks. Representatives of law enforcement agencies quite often turn to the NBU, asking for documents confirming the facts. But even if the recorded fact is obvious to us as a violation, the chain of actions of law enforcement officers is unchanged: an investigation, a trial, and only then a decision on the case, ”she turned the arrows to law enforcement agencies and. about. Deputy head of the NBU Ekaterina Rozhkova during a briefing for media representatives.

It should be noted that back in December 2015, a law was adopted providing for the creation of a National Agency for the identification, search and management of assets obtained from corruption and other crimes. According to the document, the National Agency is created by the Cabinet of Ministers and is accountable to the Verkhovna Rada. Its main task is the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of identifying and searching for assets, including those abroad, as well as managing seized and confiscated assets. But the main hopes placed on the agency are to increase efficiency and transparency in the disclosure of cases related to the withdrawal of funds, because the agency's employees will work independently of law enforcement agencies.

However, nine months have passed and the agency is still not established. Moreover, many experts generally express doubts about the effectiveness of its work. “The fact is that the National Agency is controlled by the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada, although in principle it should only be accountable to these bodies. If we recall the fact that some Ukrainian ministers still “cannot” provide income declarations, what kind of independence and transparency can we talk about?” Stanislav Batrin, director of the law firm LionsLitigate, is indignant.

According to him, an attempt to create a full-fledged organization that will identify corruption schemes and deal with the return of stolen assets is possible only if it is an absolutely independent structure with a wide range of powers and a transparent form of management. What the law adopted in December, alas, does not provide.

The Bank of Russia lowered the key rate. This is likely to be followed by a reduction in rates on deposits in commercial banks. Nevertheless, among the credit organizations there are those who are trying to lure the depositor with higher interest rates. How to recognize such a “vacuum cleaner bank”, Lenta.ru found out.

Not a single percentage

When a citizen brings money to the bank, he is primarily interested in a high interest rate. People already got burned on the pyramid schemes of the early 1990s, so the vast majority know that the higher the return, the higher the risk. But fortunately for us, for more than 10 years, a system of insurance of deposits of individuals has been operating in Russia. All banks that work with citizens' deposits pay contributions to the Deposit Insurance Agency, which will pay the depositor both the principal amount and interest, but not more than 1.4 million rubles.

In any case, it’s not very pleasant to find out that the bank where you kept the money no longer exists and you need to go to collect your deposit with accrued interest, now you need to go to another bank appointed by the payout agent. But you shouldn't worry too much either. Does this mean that when choosing a bank it makes sense to be guided only by the size of the percentage?

It is difficult to demand that an ordinary citizen care not only about his pocket, but also about the banking system as a whole. But it’s also wrong not to be interested in the reliability of the bank to which you are depositing money. This is more of a cultural issue. Do you always throw garbage in the bin, or can you pass by - the street is a draw, maybe someone will clean it up. Whether you always pay for travel in transport or you can not pay - it won’t decrease ... It’s about the same here. By depositing money in a bank that is known to be risky, you are encouraging its irresponsibility.

In a crisis, banks experience problems with money. Confidence in banks is declining, lenders are reluctant to lend. This means that in order to attract borrowed funds, it is necessary to raise the interest rate. For example, to make it 5 percent higher than the market: that is, you attract at 16 percent per annum, and lend at more than 30 percent. It turns out that the bank sucks depositors' money from the market like a vacuum cleaner. This is a usurious scheme in which both the bank and the depositor participate. And what if the bank is still unable to pay its obligations and bursts? It's not so important - others will pay. The depositor will take the insurance from the bank-agent for payments to the victims and put them in another "bank-vacuum cleaner".

It's still good if the bank has become a "vacuum cleaner" not through malicious intent, but simply faced with a shortage of borrowed funds. It happens that the scheme is initially fraudulent, and the financial institution, collecting deposits at higher rates, is not going to pay creditors at all. For example, Master Bank, which was declared bankrupt in 2014, accepted dollar deposits at 9 percent against the average market rate of 4-5 percent for foreign currency deposits. There are many schemes for embezzling client funds - using fictitious bills, loans to frontmen ... In the end, the bank is exposed, its license is revoked, and the DIA compensates for the losses of depositors. And everyone is happy. But the Deposit Insurance Agency is not a bottomless barrel. If at the end of the first quarter of this year there were about 85 billion rubles in the DIA fund, by now there are less than 70 billion rubles left. This is despite the fact that licenses are regularly revoked from retail banks. Since the beginning of the year, the Central Bank has done this with about 30 Russian banks. As the regulator explains, the credit institutions, on which he brought down his punishing sword, did not meet the requirements of financial stability and solvency. In June, OPM-Bank, Metrobank, Sibneftebank lost their licenses.

Alas, this is the reverse side of the insurance system, which, on the one hand, ensures people's confidence in banks, and on the other hand, covers unscrupulous bankers and outright scammers. Large banks have long expressed dissatisfaction with the current situation. So, the head of Sberbank German Gref has already proposed to introduce restrictions on insurance payments on deposits. For example, a lifetime limit on the total amount of insurance compensation is no more than 3 million rubles. Or pay insurance only once, or no more than once every five years. Then the depositor will think not only about interest, but also about the reliability of the bank.

Leave payments alone

“To touch the law on deposit insurance and limit insurance in any case is impossible! - Financial Ombudsman Pavel Medvedev is convinced. - The law is written in an optimal way. Enter even the slightest restriction, and people will stop trusting banks in general.” Moreover, according to Medvedev, any "penalties" in relation to depositors who have chosen the "wrong" bank will be devastating. Whether to compensate only 90 percent of the deposit or pay only the principal amount without interest - all this will lead to the fact that people simply prefer to keep money in stockings. The ombudsman considers the schemes proposed by Gref to be too complicated. “People will not figure out in which case they will receive the entire amount, and in which - only a part. They will just spit and prefer not to deal with banks,” he said in an interview with Lenta.ru.

Not only the ombudsman, who cares about depositors, but also the regulator himself, are not enthusiastic about the idea of ​​limited insurance payments. Although, it would seem that it is the Central Bank that should have the most headache from unscrupulous banks. Nevertheless, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said in early June that she did not support proposals for partial insurance payments on citizens' deposits. “The economic effect of this will not cover the damage to the reputation of the banking system,” she said.

Depositors cannot and are not required to calculate bank risks, the regulator believes. Therefore, the Central Bank decided not to influence the citizens, but the banks themselves. From July 1, a different level of insurance premiums is introduced depending on the level of maximum interest rates. Banks that raise deposit rates will have to pay more to the deposit insurance fund.

In addition, the Central Bank has the ability to monitor what depositors' money is spent on. Typically, "vacuum cleaners" that attract deposits at too high interest rates are sent to businesses associated with bank owners. This is how low-quality assets are formed. To prevent this, the regulator does not even have to revoke the bank's license - it is enough to prohibit attracting funds from the public. Pavel Medvedev believes that these measures of the Central Bank are quite capable of protecting the market from "vacuum cleaners". That way, savers can take a breath of peace - learn banking before they start saving money for a new fridge until they need it.

Watch your back

Maxim Osadchiy, Head of the Analytical Department of the Corporate Finance Bank, points out the following features that distinguish a “vacuum cleaner” from a bona fide credit institution.

The most obvious and conspicuous is the inflated deposit rates. Today, rates of 16 percent per annum, with an average market level of 11 percent, should raise questions. You should also be wary of a sharp increase in deposits, too large a share of deposits in the bank's liabilities (that is, more than 50 percent). Of course, not all banks that actively attract people's money are unscrupulous or involved in some kind of criminal schemes. “For example, Home Credit and Vostochny banks have more than half of their liabilities, but this is such a business model, there is nothing reprehensible in it,” Osadchy said in an interview with Lenta.ru. However, the signs of fraud in a credit institution should be of concern to everyone, the expert warns. “Caution never hurts. After all, if a fraudulent banker initially decided to steal your money, he may not even reflect it in the statements as deposits, and there will be problems with paying out insurance, ”warns Osadchy. In addition, money can be withdrawn from the deposit without your knowledge. Therefore, it makes sense to look closely at the bank, even if the deposit amount is less than 1.4 million rubles.

Osadchy considers such banks as Transportny, OPM-Bank and Metrobank, which were deprived of their licenses at the end of May, to be classic “vacuum cleaners”. Thus, as of May 1, the share of deposits in liabilities at Transportnoy was 73.5 percent, at Metrobank - 64.7 percent, and at OPM-Bank - 63.9 percent. The corporate loan portfolio in the assets of Transportny accounted for 65.8 percent, for Metrobank - 53.5 percent, for OPM-Bank - 83 percent. On the other hand, the share of overdue debt in the corporate loan portfolio of all three banks was less than 1 percent, which is quite natural for banks with fictitious loans. According to Osadchy, about 20 "vacuum cleaners" with signs of criminal schemes are currently operating in the Russian banking market.

But the efforts of the Central Bank alone are not enough to combat criminal banking schemes. Financial Ombudsman Medvedev complains that, until recently, the qualifications of the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were not enough to effectively suppress the activity of fraudulent banks. “In working with banks, we observed both a lack of knowledge among investigators and a delay in time, which allowed fraudsters to withdraw funds ... I fought for a whole year to create a special interdepartmental working group on crimes in the banking sector. Finally, I managed to convince the security forces that such a group will be created with the participation of the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the DIA and the Central Bank,” he says.

It is quite possible that the problem of "vacuum cleaner banks" will be solved by new measures of the regulator or improved qualifications of law enforcement agencies. But still, the situation in which conscientious banks pay the inflated rates of their colleagues seems unfair. Yes, and the investor, placing money at superinterest, must also risk at least something. Meanwhile, there is a fair solution: you can compensate for interest not at the increased rate promised by the irresponsible banker, but at the minimum rate that existed on the market at the time the deposit was opened. That is, the depositor of a bankrupt bank receives the entire amount of the deposit, receives interest income, but not “fabulous”, but minimal. It's like he put his money in the most conservative bank. Then trust in bank deposits will be preserved, and depositors will become more responsible in choosing a bank.

On June 2, in the “Vremya Pokazhet” program of the First Channel, the question was discussed, how can an ordinary depositor, say a locksmith, recognize a “vacuum cleaner” bank? I said: “... To see that the bank is a “vacuum cleaner”, maybe even a locksmith. Non-drinker, really. Apparently, he got a little excited. Firstly, there are no non-drinking locksmiths. Secondly, the picture is quite obvious only in the simplest cases.

Vacuum cleaners are one of the most dangerous types of banks. What is the main strategy of the "vacuum cleaner"? Suck up deposits and withdraw assets. What is the easiest way to withdraw assets? Through loans to one-day enterprises. You can, of course, withdraw assets using fictitious securities. For example, with the help of bronze bills (bills issued on behalf of a fictitious or insolvent person. - Approx. ed.). But such operations are conspicuous. On the basis of what can one assume that the loans are fictitious, in the current turbulent conditions? Low arrears. Although, of course, a low level of delinquency does not guarantee the fictitiousness of the loan portfolio.

You can also withdraw assets with the help of loans to fictitious individuals. In April, Transportny Bank increased its retail loan portfolio by 37%, or by 1.1 billion rubles. An even greater surge of such amazing activity occurred in December 2014: the retail loan portfolio grew by 2.3 billion rubles, deposits - by the same amount.

There is a less dangerous variety of "vacuum cleaners" - those that finance their owners' businesses with deposits. However, in this case, the bank takes on entrepreneurial risk and is also extremely dangerous. If a bank or a business has significant problems, then loans to the business owners instantly turn into fictitious loans to one-day enterprises.

Of course, there may be nuances. For example, the “vacuum cleaner” also sucks money out of enterprises. However, it is dangerous to contact enterprises. After all, deposits are insured, but funds of enterprises are not. "Abandoned" business owners can be overly aggressive, vindictive and influential. There is a special case with VIP-depositors, we will not discuss it here.

A high share of deposits in banks' liabilities does not in itself testify that a bank is a “vacuum cleaner”. Retail banks are characterized by a strategy of financing the retail loan portfolio through deposits. These banks include Home Credit and Vostochny.

The "vacuum cleaner" may be characterized by a high share of deposits in liabilities (say, more than 50%), corporate credit in assets (more than 50%) with a low level of overdue debt (less than 1%).

The licenses of three “vacuum cleaners” were recently revoked: Transportny Bank, OPM-Bank and Metrobank. All three credit institutions fit wonderfully into the described scheme. At "Transportnoy" the share of deposits in liabilities as of May 1 was 73.5%, at Metrobank - 64.7%, at OPM-Bank - 63.9%. As of May 1, Transportnoy's corporate loan portfolio's share of assets was 65.8%, Metrobank's was 53.5%, and OPM-Bank's was 83.0%. Finally, all three banks had less than 1% of overdue loans in their corporate loan portfolio: 0.3% for Transportny, 0.1% for Metrobank, and 0.8% for OPM-Bank.

It is interesting that MAST-Bank, which has a high probability of license revocation, also fits perfectly into this picture: its share of deposits in liabilities as of May 1 was 65.6%, the share of corporate loan portfolio in assets was 71.1%, the share of overdue debt in the corporate loan portfolio - 0.7%.

Let me remind you that in the first quarter of 2015, deposits in MAST-Bank grew by 34.8%, or by 4 billion rubles. In April, the bank's offices were searched, and the police detained three employees. According to investigators, the detainees withdrew up to 1.6 billion rubles through transit operations. A member of the board of directors of this bank, Yevgenia Rostovtseva, and an entrepreneur close to the bank, Sargis Meybatov, were placed under house arrest, suspected of illegally cashing out 8.8 billion rubles.

What other signs of a "vacuum cleaner" exist? Record high interest rates on deposits, aggressive growth of deposits. However, before unplugging from the socket, the vacuum cleaner can be quiet and peaceful. For example, because of the regulations of the regulator, limiting deposit rates or prohibiting the acceptance of new deposits and the replenishment of old ones. The same MAST-Bank in April was actively losing deposits due to the raid of depositors. In April, deposits decreased by 2.4 billion rubles, or 15.4%.

In total, there were 20 banks that met all three “vacuum cleaner” criteria as of May 1. Three of their licenses have already been revoked.

MINSK, July 11 - Sputnik. The Bank of Russia has imposed a three-month moratorium on satisfying the claims of creditors of Yugra Bank, one of the top 30 Russian banks and owned by businessmen from Belarus - father and son Alexei and Yuri Khotin.

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation saw signs of inaccuracy in the reporting of Yugra Bank and suspects the credit institution of withdrawing assets and manipulating deposits. In connection with the introduction of a moratorium on the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), the Central Bank assigned the functions of temporary administration of the bank for a period of six months. The powers of shareholders and management bodies of the bank have been suspended.

According to the head of the analytical department of the BKF Bank Maxim Osadchy, the bank's loss for 2016 amounted to 32.3 billion Russian rubles, for the first quarter of 2017 - 2.5 billion rubles. Osadchy did not rule out that the size of the "hole" in the balance sheet of Yugra Bank could exceed 100 billion rubles.

If the Bank of Russia confirms the size of the "hole" in the bank's balance sheet, it will become one of the most expensive imbalances in the history of the Russian banking system.

Bank "Ugra" worked according to the "vacuum cleaner" scheme - it attracted funds from the population and directed them to finance development and oil business projects of the bank's owners - father and son Khotin, Osadchiy noted.

About who the father and son of Khotina are, what connects them with Belarus, what role the Minsk Suvorov School plays in shaping the Russian business elite, and what really happened to Yugra Bank, read in the Sputnik review.

Who are the father and son of Khotin?

According to Forbes, businessmen from Belarus, father and son Yury and Aleksey Khotin, have become known as major developers in the Russian market: in the Forbes "Kings of Real Estate" rating in 2015, they take eighth place. Their income from renting real estate in Moscow, according to some reports, for 2015 amounted to more than 320 million dollars.

Initially, the Khotins were engaged in the production of cosmetics and household chemicals in Belarus - the head of the family, Yuri Khotin, headed the Belkosmeks company. In the mid-1990s, they moved to Moscow, rented premises on the territory of the meat-packing plant. Mikoyan and continued to produce household chemicals. In 1998, the plant went bankrupt, and the Khotins bought one of the plant's buildings at auction for a pittance.

It is known that Aleksey Khotin was born on May 21, 1974 in Minsk, in 1991 he graduated from the Minsk Suvorov Military School, in 1997 - from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.

Interestingly, the current main shareholder and co-owner of Uralkali Dmitry Mazepin and his friend Dmitry Lobyak, owner of a 20% stake in Uralkali, are also graduates of the Minsk Suvorov School.

Alexey Khotin is one of the 100 richest people in Russia, he controls, in whole or in part, many large companies, including financial institutions, real estate in Moscow and oil and gas companies. Among the most famous are the Moskva Hotel on Manezhnaya Square and the Filion shopping center near the Bagrationovskaya metro station. In total, according to the press, the father and son of Khotin own more than 30 retail and office properties in Moscow real estate with a total area of ​​1.8 million square meters. It is known that since 1996, under the management of Khotin, several industrial enterprises have operated in various fields: military equipment, chemical raw materials, consumer goods and food.

In 2011, Khotin acquired a large stake in Exillon Energy, a Russian oil company listed on the London Stock Exchange. He also manages the Dulisma oil company, owns a stake in Kuwait Energy, etc. In total, according to Forbes, Khotin bought at least 10 oil companies in the 2010s, which produced about 2.5 million tons in 2016 oil.

In addition, Khotin son owns more than half of Yugra Bank (No. 30 in the rating of Russian banks in 2016) through the Cypriot-Swiss firm Radamant Financial.

In the past few years, Alexey Khotin manages all the assets of the family, since his father has almost completely retired.

Interestingly, in 2013, the Khotin family was interested in the possibility of buying Uralkali from Suleiman Kerimov, who at that time was the main owner of the potash giant.

What happened to the bank "Ugra"?

Bank "Ugra" was founded in 1990 in the city of Megion, Tyumen Region, on the initiative of the association "Megionneftegaz" on the basis of a branch of the USSR Promstroybank. Until 2012, the bank grew smoothly, but already in 2015 it entered the TOP-35 Russian banks. De jure, the bank was owned by 12 individuals, but market participants indicated that all these years the bank was de facto controlled by Moscow developers Yuri and Alexei Khotin. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation has repeatedly demanded that the bank bring the shareholder structure in line and disclose the real owners. This happened only in January 2016, when Alexei Khotin appeared among the owners of Yugra, who controls 52.5% of the capital of a credit institution.

© Sputnik / Maxim Blinov

The Central Bank introduced a temporary administration in the bank "Ugra"

At the end of June, the bank announced that it was changing its ownership structure: the Russian JSC "Direct Investments" would enter the capital, and Khotin Jr. would also be the main owner.

Chronicles of the Fall

The bank began to experience problems since October 2016: it was then that insignificant turnovers on the authorized capital accounts began to be observed, while its value did not change. All this, financial experts noted at that time, indicated the ongoing processes of deconsolidation of blocks of shares. At the same time, the number of shareholders also grew, who actually had no control over the bank due to the intangibility of their assets and the rights arising from this.

In addition, the bank had a restriction on attracting household funds, which were the main source of liabilities for the bank. The Central Bank drew attention to the fact that the bank bypasses this restriction. In particular, the regulator drew attention to the fact that the bank raises funds from minority shareholders, and its large depositors received bank shares.

At the end of April, the Central Bank limited the bank's ability to attract deposits from shareholders with a share of less than 0.01%.

In the second half of May, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation issued an order to Ugra to increase its reserves by more than 40 billion rubles. However, as follows from the bank's May report, these reserves were not built up.

Shortly before the introduction of the moratorium, the Central Bank began an unscheduled audit of the bank and intended to check the completeness and timeliness of the fulfillment of obligations to customers during an emergency, deposit operations and operations with other attracted funds of individuals, as well as information technologies of the bank.

However, later the credit portfolio of the bank also fell under the control of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

After the introduction of the moratorium, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation also applied to the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation in connection with the activities of the bank, said Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Vasily Pozdyshev.

He noted that the Central Bank sees signs of a possible withdrawal of assets and manipulations with deposits, said the deputy chairman of the regulator. Most of the loans from KB Yugra went to finance the owners' business, Pozdyshev explained.

Protected private investors

Most of the deposits of citizens in the bank "Ugra" is insured in the DIA, so the depositors will receive compensation, reassured the Central Bank.

As of June 1, deposits in Yugra Bank were estimated at 180 billion rubles, 170 billion rubles of which were insured at the DIA, Pozdyshev said.

Payments to depositors of the Yugra bank will become one of the largest insured events during the period of clearing the banking system, the Central Bank stated. Payments to depositors of Yugra Bank will begin no later than July 24, the DIA said in turn.

As for the funds of companies, their balance on accounts with Yugra Bank turned out to be insignificant - only 2.2 billion rubles, since recently the funds of legal entities were withdrawn from the bank, including by the owner's technical companies, the Central Bank said.

Operations with deposits and profit

The Bank of Russia estimates the scale of manipulation operations with the deposits of the Yugra bank at almost 2 billion rubles, the depositors were given shares, Pozdyshev said.

After the bank was given a limit on raising deposits from depositors in April last year, the bank began to make individual depositors shareholders by issuing one share to them in order to circumvent the restriction, he said.

"The scale of this restriction is not very large, they are almost 2 billion, less than 2 billion rubles. We considered this a rather serious call, including this was one of the reasons for the introduction of an interim administration," Pozdyshev explained.

The Central Bank also suspects Yugra Bank of receiving technical profit from transactions with derivative financial instruments, Pozdyshev continued.

“Transactions with derivative financial instruments were discovered, as a result of which the bank received significant profits, and we have reason to believe that this profit is technical. That is, these are transactions carried out technically in order to show profit on the balance sheet,” he said.

The bank itself denies claims of illegal withdrawal of assets, the main owner of the bank, Alexei Khotin, plans to support the credit institution until its full financial recovery, President of Yugra Bank Alexei Nefedov, who was temporarily suspended from operational management in the bank in connection with the introduction of an interim administration of the Central Bank, told RIA Novosti.

Belarus has already experienced this

For Belarusians, the situation with the Yugra bank is notable not only because its owners are also Belarusians.

In 2015, the most notorious in the history of the country's banking system was the bankruptcy of the Belarusian Delta Bank. Then it was established that its beneficial owner, Ukrainian businessman Nikolai Lagun, was engaged in the withdrawal of the bank's assets abroad.

The return of deposits to the bank's depositors was undertaken after the revocation of the license from Delta Bank by the Agency for Guaranteed Deposit Compensation, now this procedure has been fully completed. Payments to depositors-legal entities have not yet begun, since the interim administration of the bank is still unable to sell its main assets.

The Supreme Court of Belarus declared Delta Bank bankrupt, and the process of its liquidation is underway.

The top managers of Delta Bank, who were actually involved in asset withdrawal operations, were detained, a criminal case was initiated against them, and the investigation is still ongoing.

The interim administration of the bank is still trying to contact Lagun to resolve the issues of liquidating the bank and selling some of its assets in Belarus, but in fact these contacts do not bring any result.