Potential bank payments under windfall tax do not threaten their financial stability - Nabiullina

MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) - The payment of a one-time contribution to the budget will not have a big impact on the financial stability of the banking sector, the head of Russia's Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said at a press conference on Friday.

"My colleagues at the Central Bank evaluated this for each bank that is potentially affected by this kind of contribution. There is no big impact on financial performance, and no impact on financial stability," she said.

The current version of the bill provides that the collection provisions come into force on January 1, 2024. The base rate will be 10% of the excess profit for 2021-2022 over the same indicator for 2018-2019. However, at the same time, there will be a tax deduction in the amount of funds transferred free of charge to the federal budget from October 1 to November 30, 2023, multiplied by two. This means businesses will be able to pay the fee in 2023 at a rate of 5%.

When assessing profits for 2021 and 2022, the regulatory easing that banks used during this period should be excluded, Nabiullina said.

"We proceed from the assumption that this is not taken from profit formed with the use of regulatory easing," she said.

VTB has already said that their losses last year eliminate the possibility of the bank paying a one-time fee to the budget. Sberbank can pay about 10 billion rubles in windfall tax, German Gref, head of Sberbank, said in April.