Decrease in capital at Russian banks in Sept driven by certain players - CBR

MOSCOW. Nov 2 (Interfax) - The decrease in equity at banks in Russia in September 2012 was driven by the actions of certain players, the Central Bank of Russia's First Deputy Chairman Alexei Simanovsky told journalists on Friday.

"There were no serious changes. In fact, as far as I remember, this concerns certain separate banks. A pair of banks actually," he said. When asked whether this had been driven by top Russian bank Sberbank's (RTS: SBER) purchased of Turkey's DenizBank, Simanovsky said, "I don't know."

CBR Deputy Chairman Mikhail Sukhov said that the decrease in total equity in the Russian banking system had not been driven by the worsening quality of assets and the need to create additional provisions. He said that the decrease was the result of restructuring on the part of several bank players.

"The decrease [in banking capital] was slight. In my view, this was several dozen million rubles. As far as I understand, it wasn't driven by the worsening quality of any assets to any extent. But it does mean that while calculating capital the reserve figure is not only corrected but also other positions. This concerns simply changes in business structure," Sukhov said.

When asked whether this development was the result of Sberbank's consolidation of DenizBank, Sukhov said: "We don't comment on this type of question."

According to CBR information, total equity in the Russian banking systems decreased by 0.7% to 5.646 trillion rubles in September. The decrease in capital in September was the biggest drop in the system in the past 19 months.

Russia banks' capital adequacy level came to 13.1% on October 1, down from 13.3% on September 1. At the start of the third quarter of 2012, the figure stood at 13.8% and at the start of the year, 14.7%.

Sberbank's equity according to the CBR's N215-P rule, decreased in September by 5%, or by 81 billion rubles, to 1.5467 trillion rubles. The bank's capital adequacy level stood at 12.1% on October 1. Sberbank said that its capital had decreased along with the adequacy level in September owing to the Denizbank acquisition.

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