First 100 banks disclose beneficiary information on Central Bank web site
MOSCOW. Jan 29 (Interfax) - One hundred banks have now disclosed information about their beneficiaries on the Central Bank's web site, in line with a Central Bank requirement from December 27, 2009.
But that group includes just three of the 100 biggest banks in Russia by assets: Absolut Bank, KIT Finance and Calyon Rusbank.
Absolut Bank was the 24th biggest Russian bank by assets according to the Interfax-100 list as of the end of the third quarter of 2009. KIT Finance was the 32nd biggest and Calyon Rusbank - 77th.
The Central Bank requirement applies to all banks that are members of the deposit insurance system. The banks must disclose information on individuals that have a substantial influence on operations.
That includes the owners of more than 1% of voting shares in a bank. The banks must also provide information on the structure of ownership of shareholders that are corporate entities, along the entire chain of ownership, where appropriate, to the end beneficiary.
Banks have the choice of disclosing the information on the Central Bank's web site or on their own web sites.
The latter option has been chosen by the big Russian banks, including Sberbank Russia , VTB , Gazprombank, Rossiya, MDM Bank, Nomos Bank , Bank St. Petersburg , Nordea Bank and Russian Standard Bank .
RTS$#&: CITB, NMOS, RSBN, SBER, STBK, VTBR