“We certainly have a colossal margin of safety for the banking system” | Articles

The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) began testing the identification of assets in cryptocurrencies of owners and top managers of bankrupt banks. In addition, it has launched a new round of attracting so-called headhunters who are looking for funds withdrawn by such owners, primarily abroad. About this, and about is it worth worrying about the possible collapse of banks and how much the “fined” owners of the collapsed financial organizations returned, In an interview with bitcoinlinux at SPIEF, Andrey Melnikov, Director General of the DIA, spoke about this.

“We were refused not on the merits, but because we are representatives of the Russian Federation”

— Andrey Gennadievich, how is the search for the assets of the owners, who led their banks and other financial organizations to ruin under the sanctions? It is clear that most of them are hiding abroad. How has this process changed?

— Speaking conceptually, nothing has changed. There were certain difficulties. Let’s say we faced politically motivated decisions of the courts in the Baltics in relation to the trials that we conducted, where we were denied not on the merits, but because we are representatives of the Russian Federation. There were foreign lawyers who, apparently, played it safe and decided to terminate their relationship with us. All this made some temporary adjustments. And so we consistently continue to work on the search for assets, involving detectives, and conduct lawsuits. It may seem to someone that we are acting slowly, but judicial work abroad, unfortunately, is not fast.

If we talk just about the latest news, it is significant that they recognized the bankruptcy of Anatoly Motylev, who is the beneficiary of a whole group of banks. Our total requirements for it amount to about 48 billion rubles. He was declared bankrupt in Russia, Great Britain and Switzerland. In April of this year, a court in the United States recognized the English bankruptcy proceedings of Anatoly Motylev. In addition, a criminal case has been initiated against him in Switzerland, which will also simplify the procedure for obtaining information about withdrawn and hidden assets.

What type of assets are you looking for? Only conservative? Surely there are difficulties with the fact that the withdrawal of funds can be carried out through cryptocurrencies, for example. Are you interested in this type of assets and can you get to them?

– It’s obvious that people who stole money from banks understand that sooner or later we will reach real assets. Therefore, the hypothesis that some of them store funds in cryptocurrency is extremely plausible. We are also doing this.

– And you have the ability to detect this?

We are currently testing this possibility.

– What are the test results?

– When there are results, then we will say.

But are you serious about this job?

“If the world is moving in this direction, we can’t be left behind. We follow him.

— Litigation abroad is always a long and expensive process. I remember that you had such a program very bright in connection with its name – “Headhunters”. Does she still exist?

– Yes. Now there are 15 contracts in progress with companies that have chosen this path, they themselves finance the search for assets, and litigation, and foreclosure, primarily abroad. They receive remuneration on the principle of “fee for success” – they are paid a percentage of the actual proceeds to the bankruptcy estate based on the results of the events. The average remuneration is 30%. Thanks to attracted companies, the funds of the bankruptcy estate of liquidated financial organizations are not spent.

They deal with the controlling persons of 37 banks with a total amount of our claims of almost 1 trillion rubles. There are no cases when someone refuses halfway, again, colleagues consistently work, invest in these processes. Perhaps this year or next we will be ready to talk about the results. At least, trials against Georgy Bedzhamov (co-owner of Vneshprombank with a hole of about 200 billion rubles. – bitcoinlinux) are also being conducted along the path of “Headhunters”. There are successful cases on the recognition of the assets of Georgy Bedzhamov, although they were registered with third parties in Russia. This is an amount that also amounts to billions of rubles.

“These are not the resources that you and I need for economic development”

— The President instructed to work out measures to support the participants in the special operation and their families. Does DIA have any suggestions on this?

We offered it right away. In addition to the usual loan holidays, we asked lenders to support us in order to make loan holidays with an interest-free period for CBO participants. To grant credit holidays to borrowers of a liquidated bank, the consent of the committee of its creditors is required. The fact is that the funds received from borrowers to repay the debt go to the bankruptcy estate, and then are distributed among creditors.

And in the vast majority of cases they agree with us.. Perhaps our contribution to this overall process is small compared to the scale of other banks. We have only 34 appeals for 46 million rubles. We are also ready to provide credit holidays for legal entities that belong to small and medium-sized businesses, if they consist of a single participant who is called up to the ranks of the SVO.

– Relatively recently, you have a new direction for guaranteeing funds that are formed in the system of non-state pension provision. How is it integrated into the system?

– This is one of the new state programs that we were instructed to launch as an administrator. And it was launched on January 1 this year, and during this time, as you know, there has been a noticeable change in the government’s strategy for building long-term savings. Instead of the standard guaranteed amount of 1.4 million rubles, an amount of 2.8 million rubles is applied, and in special circumstances – 10 million rubles.

A fund is being formed, it has already approached 1 billion rubles. We are, so to speak, infrastructural work: negotiations with agent banks, with actuaries, because they will have to estimate the amount of assets that are transferred to another fund in order to pay already assigned pensions. That is a fairly large layer of preparatory work.

– It is clear that the amount of insurance coverage for the new savings program was increased to 2.8 million rubles in order to compete with banks. But they, too, may be indignant and say: we will offer deposits for 10 years and we also want such insurance.

— Let’s first see if a ten-year deposit will appear on the market. Every financial institution has its purpose. And it’s not for nothing that different levels of guarantees are established. We are talking about financial intermediaries that form truly long-term resources for the economy – these are insurance companies and pension funds, and definitely not banks. At best, they will be engaged in raising funds for an average period: three years, five years, I think this is the ceiling. But these are not the resources that you and I need for economic development.. Pension funds are decades, long-term life insurance is decades.

– So you think that it is unlikely that the issue of increasing the amount of insurance on deposits will be raised if their term is raised to 10 years?

— Let’s wait for such products and look at their popularity. For example, banks can attract so-called irrevocable deposits through savings certificates. But their share is extremely small. I think a ten-year contribution will also not be popular.

– Due to the fact that until this system is formed at the expense of contributions from pension funds, the entire burden falls on the already existing fund. Will the DIA need help from the Central Bank again?

— If the state decided to create such a system, it means that it is absolutely confident in its strength and financial capabilities.. We can draw an analogy. The deposit insurance system and the system of guaranteeing voluntary pension savings are built on the same principles. There is a fund, which is formed in the current mode at the expense of contributions from participants. When creating the bank deposit insurance system, there was a period when we came to the Central Bank and asked for a loan because we had exhausted our own possibilities. Last year, this loan, which is more than 800 billion rubles, was paid off. And now we have again come to surplus financing. Continuing this analogy, if suddenly we have a risk for the system of pension funds, there is a proven mechanism for borrowing from the Central Bank.

– Do you have an agreement with the Central Bank that you will come to it, if anything?

– This mechanism is prescribed in the law.

Does it apply to this case as well?

– Certainly. And it is extremely bright, showing how this mechanism actually works.

“Sooner or later we will come for creditors’ money”

— How are things going with bringing to subsidiary liability the owners and top managers of credit institutions?

– This is probably one of the most difficult elements in our work. When we liquidate a financial institution, we first sell the assets that we have. Then we establish the guilt of people through the courts or as part of criminal prosecution – who caused damage to creditors, and we must impute this damage to them. Here at least we filed 600 lawsuits in the amount of 2.7 trillion rubles in civil proceedings.

– Three times more than you took from the Central Bank.

– Yes. Approximately 3,000 people are defendants. We have already received court decisions on almost 400 lawsuits, where the amount of recovery is about 400 billion rubles. We still have a fairly large number of decisions made, waiting for the amount to be fixed already at the end of the liquidation of banks. If we took the path of bringing to responsibility, then we must first clear the balance, pay off all creditors. Then a hole in the bank will be clearly recorded, which is imputed to the guilty persons.

Now – how the money is returned. Let me remind you that this is a recovery from the persons who caused the damage. This is the final stage of our work, which we practically started in mass mode only last year. That is, criminal cases were completed or completed.

The first entries are in: We received 5 billion rubles, about 120 billion worth of assets were arrested, mainly in criminal cases, and then the process that we have already discussed begins – the search for assets. And this is the work that we will be doing, obviously, for two, three, four years, maybe more, mainly within the framework of the personal bankruptcies of all these comrades.

– But the owner himself can cover the damage in order to avoid criminal liability. How often do they use this opportunity?

– This is also the result that we get from the consistent filing of claims against the guilty persons. The law does indeed allow a third party to repay all claims to creditors and take assets for itself. Behind this person, the beneficiary of the bank may be hiding, and indeed a third party who considers the closure of the organization as an investment project, and we have come across this.

In order to encourage people to make such decisions, they must understand that this is the best alternative for them before judicial and criminal prosecution. And in recent years, the number of such cases has increased markedly.. These are 25 financial institutions for which more than 24 billion rubles were returned to creditors.

This was not the case five years ago. People understand that sooner or later we will come for creditors’ money. It’s better to go to the peace agreement earlier. This we can only welcome. Moreover, there are beneficiaries of banks who, beyond this, try to reduce the amount of damage to creditors to the maximum extent possible. They simply buy assets, withdraw their claims, negotiate with borrowers so that, as they say, a smaller amount arrives to them as a result.

“This is not 2008 or 2004”

— Rating agencies are constantly making forecasts that by the end of the year dozens of banks will leave the market. In the current situation, when credit institutions are collapsing in the United States, this worries people very much. Do you think that such a scenario can come to us? And is the DIA ready for such a development of events?

Such forecasts are made every year. I want to remember the first session at SPIEF. It said that economic life within the global economy is divided into fragmented zones. There is no longer a common market now, so the transition of the crisis from one part of the economy to another faces other trade links. There is no direct transfer. This is not 2008 or 2004.

So the domino effect doesn’t work?

– No, it doesn’t work anymore.

Did the sanctions help?

Now let’s get back to the sanctions. If we lived quite calmly last year and this year there is not a single license revocation, this means that we definitely have a colossal margin of safety for the banking system.