"Baltic Bank": problems with the "Central Bank" (2014)

"Baltic Bank" is one of the oldest commercial institutions that started operations in the territory of the Russian Federation in 1989, after obtaining an appropriate license from the Bank of Russia. The reliability and level of professionalism is demonstrated by the participation of a financial institution in the Deposit Insurance System and the SWIFT community. But not so long ago, there were reports that there are problems with "Baltic Bank" with the Central Bank.

History of development

The Leningrad Innovation and Commercial Bank was renamed into "Baltic" a few months after the organization. Four years later, he received a license to carry out transactions in foreign currency and joined SWIFT. In 1994 he began working with precious metals, issuing Mastercard cards. At the same time there were terminals for accepting plastic cards. The system of remote access to accounts was launched. A year later the bank began offering promissory notes and realized the first checkbook.

In 1997, the first ATMs of the "Baltic Bank" appeared, a system of non-cash payments was launched, as well as payment for utility services. Two years later, the mortgage and car loans program was introduced. In 2000, the first VISA Electron, Gold, Business and Classic cards were issued. Following the debit, the issue of credit cards started. "Baltic" became a member of the "Golden Crown" payment system.

By 2010, the line of financial services included: deposits in national and foreign currencies, the implementation of credit and settlement cards, the provision of loans for various purposes, the opening and maintenance of accounts, money transfers, including Western Union, payments, operations with the Central Bank, Rent of safes and so on.

Results of work

For 24 years of operation, the bank acquired 18,000 corporate and more than 2.5 million private customers, developed a network of offices in 31 cities of the Russian Federation, issued over 1.3 million plastic cards and installed fifteen hundred ATMs. Cooperation with WESTERN UNION, MasterCard and VISA International promoted the development of a financial institution. In 2012, the credit institution held 66th place in net assets, 13th in terms of the number of plastic cards and ATMs.

"Baltic Bank": problems

08/20/2014 The Central Bank announced the introduction of an interim administration in the "Baltic". This function was assigned to the "Agency for Rhinestone Deposits" for a period of six months. Under the DIA plan, to maintain liquidity, the bank will be financed by 10 billion rubles within a year. Control over the procedure for recovery is carried out by the DIA. In the near future we must choose sanatoriums.

Recently it became known about the decision of the arbitration court on eviction of the bank from the building. The lease contract for the premises expired in May 2013. The document was signed with "Rosimushchestvo" in 2004. The tenant is "Baltic Bank" (St. Petersburg). The problems of sanitation are aggravated by the internal conflict of shareholders. According to the website, the assets of the financial institution are owned by its president Oleg Shigaev, Baltic Trading House Ltd. (49.877%) and Elena Prokhorenko (0.13%). More than a year ago there were rumors that the bank wanted to sell. But the shareholders could not agree on the price. To resolve their differences, they appealed to the court.

More about sanitation

According to analysts, the amount that the Central Bank offered for recovery is very small, so the queues from the sanatoriums will not have to wait. Of its means, the Bank of Russia will allocate a loan of 10 billion rubles, and the regulator must find an investor for the recovery of the credit institution. But the emergence of reports of unscrupulous financial institution operations with assets worsened the situation. If the information is confirmed, the data will be transferred to law enforcement agencies. So far, the bank continues to function, providing a full range of services without delay and panic.

Problems in the "Baltic Bank" are caused by the presence of a large number of "non-working" assets. This led to a risk of loss of liquidity. Shareholders and managers can not manage the amount of more than 40 billion rubles. This situation, on the one hand, causes financial problems, and on the other hand it gives an opportunity to attract new investors to the "Baltic Bank".

Problems with the Central Bank are also caused by the fact that the financial institution did not have a single credit rating recently. It did not keep funds of regional budget employees. At the end of last year, Expert RA lowered the rating of the bank due to low capital adequacy ratios and a large amount of accounts receivable.

Obstacles to health improvement

According to Interfax, 69th place by assets is occupied by "Baltic Bank". The problems of 2014 may arise during the procedure of recovery. A large credit organization may have new obligations. A significant part of the assets was associated with the owners' business. Therefore, wishing to sanitize the bank a little. The exact amount of the affiliated assets will be known by the results of the work of the DIA. But some data is already available. The bank has funds in trust for a total of 4.6 billion rubles. The market value of most of them is close to zero. A significant portion of the loan portfolio - 18.7 billion rubles - will not be returned. Formally, "Baltic" received a profit based on the results of three months of 2014. But if you deduct from this amount gifts to shareholders and income from property received free of charge, then the profit turns into a loss. The main candidates for the role of sanatoriums are Alfa Bank and Life Group.

The aggravation of the situation

Another obstacle to recovery is an unbalanced portfolio. The bank attracted cash through expensive deposits. But there is nothing to return them. The assets of "Baltic" are low-yielding. The main area of activity today is issuing loans to legal entities and investing in real estate.

Six months ago, the Central Bank banned a financial institution from accepting deposits from the public. The lawsuit was not adopted. As a result, in June, information appeared about the delay in payments. "Baltic" explained this a small shortage of cash. Today, the Bank of Russia website does not contain data on the compliance of the financial organization with liquidity requirements.

"Baltic Bank": problems of clients

After the appearance of reports about problems, the people ran to withdraw money from accounts. This could not but affect the solvency of the financial institution. Customers - even with all the necessary documents - could not withdraw deposits in a planned manner. Not to mention the early termination of the contract.

Over the past decade, the level of service has remained almost unchanged. To open a deposit with a bank, the client must first familiarize himself with a number of restrictions. First, a large commission for the early termination of the contract. Secondly, only a small amount of money can be credited to the account. The last, and most incomprehensible - at the end of the contract term to transfer funds to another financial institution is impossible. The "Baltic Bank" problem of 2014 explains the policy of the provisional administration. But long before the imposed sanctions, the level of customer service left much to be desired. Numerous customer reviews on the forums confirm this. In order not to be unfounded, we give only some of them.

Performing the most basic operations (payment of bills, utilities, etc.) in the office takes half an hour - with continuous communication with the manager and the bank's cashier. Those who wish to make payments through Internet banking expect an additional surprise in the form of installing additional software that is compatible only with the Windows operating system (iOS and Android can not be said). But this is nothing compared to the "individual" signature of each payment of a legal entity by the director. The time for receiving the statements of the current day is before 13:00.

A large number of "preliminary" actions, high interest rates for loans and services, a suddenly blocked card, dirty office space, incompetent personnel service are often problems with the "Baltic Bank", but, as it turned out, they are far from the most critical ...

System Failure

Recently, the forums have appeared with complaints about the theft of money from accounts. Customers on the phone receive messages about the withdrawal of money by Internet services, for example, "Yandex.Money", without confirmation of the transaction by the cardholder. Even a timely application to the office will not solve the problem. Money will not be returned to the account. Of course, with the theft of money from the account is the fault of the client. Do not once again leave on extraneous sites information about your card. But today any self-respecting bank will at least impose restrictions on the implementation of non-cash transactions via the Internet, and as a maximum - with each withdrawal of funds will wait for SMS-confirmation from the client.

On the forums, you can often meet customer complaints about changes in the decision about lending at the last minute. The "Baltic Bank" problems are explained by failures in the system. Known precedents, when a couple of hours after applying for a loan, the client was called back from the bank and invited to the office for processing documents. But already in the department reported that the failure in the program led to erroneous confirmation of the application. Comments are unnecessary ...

Summary

So, one more credit institution that got under the "purge" of the Central Bank - "Baltic Bank". The problems with the Central Bank are caused by the presence of a large number of affiliated assets. This issue is handled by the DIA. Perhaps, if it can be resolved positively, new investors will be interested in improving the service. For all time of existence of "Baltic bank" the problems connected with a low quality of service, and could not solve independently.