Russian banks to adopt International Accounting Standards from January 1 2004

Russian banks will adopt international accounting standards (IAS) on January 1, 2004. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, this was announced by First Deputy Chairman of the Russian Central Bank Tatyana Paramonova at the conference IAS-Russian integration into the world economy. She mentioned that in May the Central Bank published a detailed report of the Russian banking sector's gradual transition to IAS. 'Bankers are now receiving the necessary training,' she said. She added that the Central Bank has already organized seminars on accounting practices with 70% of the country's bank managers.

'The transition is a very difficult process as for almost 70 years the whole system of accounting was geared towards a centralized planned economy,' she explained. She also stressed that over the next two years the Central Bank 'will support those banks which have not adopted international accounting standards.' From January 1, 2006 however, the Central Bank 'will start assessing accounting standards in those banks which have not adopted IAS and at this point problems may arise.'