The Russian Central Bank will propose raising Russian banks' minimum capital requirement to 300 million rubles ($10 million) from the current 90 million rubles from 2015, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Gennady Melikyan said on Tuesday.
"The expediency of setting the banks' capital requirement at 300 million rubles from 2015 will be discussed," Melikyan said, referring to a strategy worked out by the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry.
"After an increase of the level to 180 million rubles, equity capital will grow 15 percent per year and 300 million rubles will not worsen the minimum capital/average capital of a bank ratio," Melikyan said, referring to the requirement to raise capital to 180 million rubles from 2012.
Previously, the Central Bank had proposed that the minimum capital requirement be raised to 250-500 million rubles. The bank has set a minimum capital level of 90 million rubles from 2010.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in November that capital requirement for banks could be increased to one billion rubles or $30 million from 2015-2016. Central Bank Chairman Sergei Ignatyev said then that the bank was against a sharp and significant growth in bank minimum capital requirements.
Mikhail Sukhov, director of the central bank's department for credit institutions licensing and financial rehabilitation, said last December that banks would have to raise 141.5 billion rubles, if the minimum level was set at 500 million rubles and 454.8 billion rubles if the minimum level was set at 1 billion rubles.
Sukhov said there were 417 banks in Russia with 500 million rubles capital and 275 banks with 1 billion rubles capital in December 2010.
TULA, January 18 (RIA Novosti)
