Bank24.ru Chairman comes up with rescue plan

23 October 2008 (08:05)

One of Yekaterinburg’s popular Internet forums where people discuss the banking community’s problems published an unofficial rescue plan for Bank24.ru signed by the bank’s Chairman Sergey Lapshin.

The message states Bank 24.ru backed out of the M&A proposals it had been made because the purchasing sums were seen as inadequate by the shareholders.

Then, the message author does admit that the bank is having liquidity problems, especially in terms of non-cash resources, and is hoping for the federal authorities’ help. At the same time, the resource shortage and troubles with payment transactions have already forced some of the bank’s customers to switch to the state-run banks. This trend might actually continue.

The rescue plan says Bank24.ru’s problems were mainly caused by the bank’s large-scale depositors:

‘We need to provide their deposits with at least 3% to 6% of annual interest, which is something we cannot afford at the moment. The local bankers all realize that an upper limit of 700,000 RUR is needed for all depositors in order to move on to the next crisis in 2011-2012 without any volatile customers. We’ll accept such large-scale customers now but later on, they’d be better off keeping their money in safes and state-run banks,’ the message says.

According to this posting, Bank24.ru is planning to deal with the crisis by removing the option of cashing the deposit in before the end of the deposit period from the contracts it signs with the legal entities. Then, business customers willing to take a loan from the bank would have to borrow at 26% to 36% a year and pay back on a monthly basis. Then, Bank24.ru will have to give up on mortgage lending and car loans. The future of the current programs is unclear.


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