Twenty Five Years of Russian Banking System

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to assess the Russian banking system for the period 1991–2015. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia introduced economic reforms to move from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, and banking reforms were part of it. During early years of transition, Russia suffered from negative growth rate: 1998 and 2008 crises. The entire Russian economy, including the banking system, got affected. Therefore, it is essential to know how the Russian banking system performed in these 25 years. The study found that the Russian banking system performance was not satisfactory until 1998–1999; from 2000 onwards, the system showed some signs of resilience. The Russian banking system is largely concentrated and dominated by state-owned banks with 58.4 per cent of share of the total banking assets and 57 per cent share of the total banking capital in comparison to foreign-owned and privately owned banks. Banks are largely concentrated in the regions of Moscow and St. Petersburg in comparison to Ural, Siberia and Russian Far East. Macroeconomic indicators of the Russian banking sector, including banking sector assets, capital, loans, securities and household deposits as per cent to GDP, revealed a rising trend. This indicates the ability of the banking sector to create loans and attract depositors by maintaining their trust in the banking system. Return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and non-performing loans (NPL) are the main drivers of profitability, and the trend shows a low growth rate in ROA and equity and high growth rate in NPL, which are of major concern for banking system health.