Russian banks will be allowed to operate in Novorossiya
Moscow - Kyiv, November 20 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - Russian banks should be able to open branches in areas of mass residence of compatriots who have suffered a humanitarian catastrophe - in particular, in the Donbass. Such a bill, amending a number of laws of the Russian Federation, including “On Banks and Banking Activities” and “On the Central Bank,” was developed by a member of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes, United Russia member Evgeniy Fedorov. He reported "Izvestia"that the bill is under consideration by the government.
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According to Fedorov, after the departure of Ukrainian banks, compatriots in the Donbass and Lugansk region have no opportunity to receive salaries and pensions, make payments, or make money transfers. Fedorov is confident that out of 800 Russian banks there will be those willing to start working in the region, where there are millions of potential clients. They started working in Crimea, despite the sanctions, the interlocutor noted.
Fedorov’s bill is generally devoted to the protection of compatriots abroad and has the working title “On socio-economic support for Russian compatriots living in the zone of humanitarian disaster.” As stated in the explanatory note to the document, its goal is to create a legal framework for providing socio-economic support to Russian compatriots living en masse in a zone of humanitarian catastrophe, that is, in a territory where, as a result of military actions, there is a threat of genocide, epidemic, famine, violence against civilians, and conditions are created designed for the complete or partial physical destruction of the Russian-speaking population. The right to introduce a regime for providing socio-economic support to compatriots living abroad is vested in the government, and the Supreme Court will establish the existence of a humanitarian catastrophe where compatriots live - based on their application.
To determine the boundaries of the disaster zone, the Supreme Court may use materials from referendums, elections of local authorities or other documents provided by the applicants.
First Deputy Prime Minister of the DPR Andrei Purgin told Izvestia that the republic is ready to consider the official circulation of the ruble on the territory of the republic along with the hryvnia. “We support the initiative to allow Russian banks to operate in Donbass,” says Purgin. In fact, the ruble has been in circulation in the LPR and DPR since September of this year.
Deputy Speaker of the DPR Parliament Denis Pushilin explained to Izvestia that the situation with the Donbass banking system is catastrophic - there are no credit institutions in the region, the population and enterprises are forced to pay only in cash, and their supply is running out. The head of the Republican Assembly of the LPR, Vasily Nikitin, said that the situation in Lugansk is approximately the same. LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky said this week that the republic intends to use the local postal enterprise as a bank.
According to Pushilin, Ukraine's debt to state employees in the southeast is approximately $3,5 million. Mobile communications are paid in cell phone stores or using Internet and mobile banking. As LifeNews correspondents who worked in the DPR and LPR told Izvestia, payments can be made through mobile terminals. Nikitin said that people cash out their salary cards either on Russian territory or go to territory controlled by Ukrainian security forces. Housing and communal services payments are accepted at the registered cash desks of utility companies. Since the system of personal accounts is broken, accounting is kept “on the knees”, recording accepted payments in their registers and handing out receipts stamped with the company’s seals. Humanitarian convoys from Russia became a real salvation from hunger for many.
As Izvestia’s interlocutors told, in the territories of the LPR and DPR there are more than 30 metallurgical, coal mining, chemical and engineering enterprises, which are among the 200 largest in Ukraine. In particular, in the Donetsk region these are the Donetsk Metallurgical Plant, Donetsk Coke Chemical Plant, Donugol, Donetskugleobogashchenie, Zasyadko Mine, Donetskgormash, Topaz Plant, Stirol, Gorlovsky Coke Chemical Plant, Enakievo Steel Plant and Enakievo Coke Chemical Plant, Makeevka Iron and Steel Works, Makeevka Pipe Foundry plant, Makeyevsky and Yasinovsky coking plants, Khartsyzsk Pipe Plant, Shakhterscanthracite, Torezanthracite, Snezhnyansky Machine Plant. In the Lugansk region there are Stakhanov Carriage Works, Stakhanov Ferroalloy Plant, Stakhanov Machine Building Plant and Carbon Black Plant, Luganskugol, Luganskteplovoz, Lugansk Foundry-Mechanical Plant, Lugansk Machine-Building Plant, Lugansk Pipe Plant, Lugansk Cartridge Plant, Krasnodonugol, Donbassantracite, state enterprise Anthracite", "Rovenkianthracite", "Sverdlovanthracite".
The DPR Ministry of Economic Development cannot accurately determine which enterprises from the list are operating and which are not. But now almost all enterprises that stopped their work are resuming it, the head of the ministry, Evgenia Tamokhina, told Izvestia.
Retail also needs a banking system. “Now only cash payments are in use,” Izvestia was told at the Green Plaza shopping center (Donetsk). “The company issues a receipt for the goods, and then the payment is entered into the cash book.”
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, President of the Association of Regional Banks of Russia Anatoly Aksakov believes that Fedorov’s initiative can be implemented as a temporary measure with the involvement of field divisions of the Central Bank - as, for example, was done in Chechnya in the 1990s. At the same time, Aksakov points out that banks may face Western sanctions, and this is unacceptable when working with depositors’ money. According to Aksakov, a more effective measure would be to create their own banks in the DPR and LPR on their own.
A number of other parliamentarians did not dare to speak officially about Fedorov’s bill. On condition of anonymity, two deputies indicated that it is highly likely that Russian banks will not be allowed to operate quietly in the DPR and LPR, even if the initiative becomes law. The banks themselves also refrained from commenting.
The head of the analytical department of the BKF bank, Maxim Osadchiy, says that, according to Bank of Russia instruction No. 2-I dated April 2010, 135, in order to obtain permission to create a branch on the territory of a foreign state, the bank must submit to the regulator a copy of the permission from the foreign regulator (in this case, the National Bank of Ukraine). “The work of Russian banks on the territory of Ukraine without approval from the NBU may provoke a new round of sanctions both against these banks and against Russia,” added Osadchiy.
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