‘If the Federal Antimonopoly Service abandons the claims it has in terms of Russian Standard Bank’s actions and stops inspecting it, the profitability of Russian Standard Bank’s stock might go down by 30 to 40 basis points,’ Stanislav Ponomarenko of ING said to UrBC.

Mr. Ponomarenko also says that the inspection of the bank seems to be far from being complete: the upcoming parliamentary elections this December induce the federal authorities to carry out a public relations campaign, and something that could be presented as protection of consumers’ rights would be a good idea.

At the end of June, the top executives of the Central Bank of Russia, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service were requested by the Russian Federation Prosecutor-General to look into Russian Standard Bank’s activity in order to protect the bank borrowers. It appears the bank failed to provide their customers with full and credible information on the terms of consumer loan offers, and the actual interest rate on such loans was a few times greater than the one stated in the contract.