Updated at 13:52,22-04-2024

National Bank: Belarusian banking system under threat

"Charter-97"

Pyotr Prakapovich, the chairman of the National Bank board, says about a "significant threat" to the Belarusian banking system in his letter to prime minister Syarhei Sidorski.

Radio Svaboda reports about this referring to Interfax.

The National Bank of Belarus emphasizes that the dangerous situation in the banking sector is caused by the rising liquidity crisis of state-run banks. The situation is complicated by an increase in problem loans that have grown 3.3-fold in January–August.

The critical deterioration of liquidity of state-run banks can be explained by high credit burden in the framework of governmental financing programmes. For the period January–September 2009, state-run banks increased the volume of financing governmental programme 1.4-fold (up to 6.76 trillion Belarusian rubles) yoy.

According to a source of Interfax, the consequence of significant problems in liquidity is growing number of delays in tax payment. At the end of September – the beginning of October the volume of delayed taxes by Belarusbank, the biggest Belarusian bank, exceeded 1 trillion Belarusian rubles per day.

The National Bank of Belarus offers the government to level down standards of financing governmental programmes for state-run banks and delegate these functions to the state development agency, which creation is one of Belarus’s obligations to the International Monetary Fund.

Giving the credit portfolio, created in the framework of financing governmental programmes, will allow the Belarusian banks to "clean" their balances that must partially improve the situation in liquidity.

The alternative to reforming the financing governmental programme us another recapitalization of state-run banks from budget resources.