Central Bank to tighten requirements for bank founders

The Central Bank of Russia plans to make the requirements for the founders of credit organizations stricter, Mikhail Sukhov, director of the licensing department of the Central Bank, declared at a press conference today. He was quoted as saying that a relative instruction would be issued by the end of this year. A bank's shareholders "should be known not due to mass media only", Sukhov specified. The requirements will be imposed on founders of newly created credit organizations as well as on founders of the existing banks.

At the same time the official stressed that the Central Bank controls founders that have more than a 20 percent stake in a bank's capital. Sukhov said that the authorities of the Bank would try to convince legislators to decrease this level to 10 percent. In this event the circle of the controlled founders will be enlarged and this will enable the Central Bank to exercise better control over the activity of credit organizations and their founders.

He pointed out that credit organizations and their founders should "think how to bring their banks' balances to order" before the coming introduction of international accounting standards". If it does not happen, many credit organizations "will have problems", the official added.

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