Читать книгу Putin's Russia - Группа авторов - Страница 41

In October 2018, 150 foreign banks operated in Russia, including 63 foreign-controlled banks with 100% foreign share; 17 foreign-controlled banks with foreign shares of 51–99%; and 70 foreign banks with capital participation of less than 50%. The number of foreign banks has steadily declined from 2014 to 2018, suggesting that foreign investors may be reconsidering their investment plans in Russia. Foreign-controlled banks with foreign shares of 51–99% and foreign banks with capital participation of less than 50% decreased by 63% and 54%, respectively. The foreign banks’ share in the total charter capital of the Russian banking sector declined from 23% in 2014 to 13.44% in October 2018. It should be noted that about 11% of foreign banks are significantly controlled by Russian residents (Figure 2).

Figure 2:Foreign banks and their share in total charter capital of the banking system (number and percentage).

Source: Compiled by the author from the Bank of Russia (2019) and the Bank of Russia’s statistics available at https://www.cbr.ru/Eng/statistics/.

Foreign-controlled banks with 100% capital participation are established by their parent banks in Europe (42.4%), Asia (21.2%), North America (9.1%) and the Middle East (7.6%), while about 7.6% of them are de facto controlled by Russian residents round-tripping FDI from offshore territories (Gorshkov, 2018c). The extensive presence of European banks reflects historical and geographical forces. The gravity model of FDI appears to explain the strong presence of European banks such as AO “UniCredit Bank” (Italy) and AO “Raiffeisenbank” (Austria). European banks from Austria, France and Italy have relatively large retail businesses in Russia.

Asian banks, particularly those from Japan, China and South Korea, have recently expanded their presence in Russia, but the scope of their activities remains limited. Most of them support manufacturing FDI from their home countries. This is the standard practice of Japanese banks (Gorshkov, 2017). Other market segments in which Asian foreign banks operate include corporate loans to Russian firms, customers located in Europe and CIS, Russian SMEs, lending activities to Russian banks, retail banking (automobile loans, mortgage, foreign exchange) and investment in Russia’s federal bonds (Gorshkov, 2018c).