1 Feb 2010 19:41

Top 100 Russian banks see assets grow 3.2% in 2009

MOSCOW. Feb 1 (Interfax) - The net assets of Russia's 100 largest banks grew 3.2% to 24.066 trillion rubles in 2009, according to the Interfax-100 ranking of the country's biggest lending institutions at the end of the fourth quarter.

The first 100 banks, which hold 83% of the Russian banking sector's entire assets, grew their assets 46% in 2008.

The Interfax CEA said 60 of the 100 banks grew their assets in 2009, whereas only seven of the top 100 had negative asset growth in 2008.

The biggest growth in 2009 was 331.9% at CentroCredit, 125.2% at Russian Development Bank, 95.5% at SMP Bank, 89.3% at MDM Bank, 87.4% at Vneshprombank, 80.6% at Trust National Bank and 77.9% at Metcombank.

Asset decline was most severe at banks specializing in consumer credit and at some foreign bank subsidiaries. Assets decreased the most at Commerzbank (Eurasia) (-63.8%), BNP Paribas (-48.5%), ING Bank (Eurasia) (-41.7%), BTA Bank (-40.9%), Russian Standard Bank (-35.3%), Moskommertsbank (-34.8%), Renaissance Capital (-33.9%), Banque Societe Generale Vostok (-32.6%), Evrofinance Mosnarbank (-28.6%) and Deutsche Bank (-26.1%).

One in five banks saw their equity decline, and eleven of them saw it decline more than 10%: Petrovsky (-71.6%), KIT Finance (-54.9%), Absolut Bank (-39.7%), Sobinbank (-31.0%), Soyuz (-27.6%), B&N Bank (-27.8%), Baltiyskiy Bank (-26.3%), BTA Bank (-23.2%), Rosbank (-17.4%), Russian Standard Bank (-15.7%) and Swedbank (-13.2%).

Otkritie boosted its equity 3.4-fold, Metcombank and MDM - 2.8-fold, Russian Development Bank - 2.4-fold, CentroCredit - 91.6%, Moscow Credit Bank - 75.4%, Home Credit & Finance - 75.2%, Russian Agriculture Bank - 71.1% and Nordea Bank - 70.6%.

Twenty banks closed the year with net losses, notably Rosbank - 10.3 billion rubles, KIT Finance- 10.2 billion rubles, Absolut - 7.3 billion rubles, Sviaz Bank - 5.6 billion rubles, Baltiyskiy Bank - 4.8 billion rubles, BSGV - 4.1 billion rubles, Petrovsky - 3.1 billion rubles, BTA Bank - 2.7 billion rubles, Alfa-Bank - 2.0 billion rubles and Promsvyazbank - 1.8 billion rubles.

The highest net profits last year were posted by Sberbank - 36.2 billion rubles, VTB - 28 billion rubles and Home Credit & Finance - 10.2 billion rubles, the latter despite having assets 98.6% lower than Sberbank and 96.3% lower than VTB, and equity 97.1% lower than Sberbank and 95.7% lower than VTB.

Gazprombank closed the year with net profit of 9.2 billion rubles, Citibank - 6.9 billion rubles, UniCredit - 5.8 billion rubles, TransCreditBank - 5.2 billion rubles, VTB24 - 4.2 billion rubles, Raiffeisenbank - 4.1 billion rubles and National Reserve Bank - 4.0 billion rubles.