The state bank. Banks with state participation

State banks of Russia have an interesting history and specific features of work in the conditions of our country. Let's see how the segment of the relationship between government and the banking sector is structured.

The Central Bank and the State Bank: the Relation of Concepts

In the philistine environment, the terms "Central Bank" and "State Bank" are sometimes identified. On the one hand, there is no particular error: "CB" is a state bank, wholly owned by the authorities. On the other hand, there is another common interpretation of the word "state bank" - this is a commercial credit institution, the controlling stake of which (more than 50% of shares) belongs to the state (usually in the form of the government). The second interpretation is commonly used in the Russian press and journalism. Modern large banks with state participation - VTB24, Sberbank (SB RF), Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank. In turn, non-governmental ("commercial") will be a credit institution, a controlling stake in which belongs to private individuals (one or several).

Why is the "Central Bank" called the state bank? Mainly because, like an authoritative institution, stands alone over commercial lending institutions, it manages the issue of money, regulates the national financial system, on the whole resolving tasks primarily not connected with the extraction of profits, but rather, close to the functions of the state.

Bank state and non-state: main differences

The size of the state's share in the possession of the bank is only a formal distinctive feature. State banks and commercial lending institutions are not similar to each other due to a multitude of other indicators - conditioned, as a rule, by the practice of the activity. We can distinguish the following. The state bank most often offers loans with an interest rate lower than that of private financial institutions. The reason for this is the preferential working conditions guaranteed by the government.

No one gives a commercial institution such privileges, and it is forced to compensate for losses through higher lending rates. In state-owned banks, interest on deposits is lower than in private structures, and this is also understandable: the former enjoy the traditional trust of the population, while the latter are forced to attract working capital. State banks tend to be more flexible in forming a tariff policy on mortgages due to reduced risks (which is a consequence of the noted preferential terms that the government gives).

History: state banks of the Russian Empire

The emergence of state-owned banks is not connected with the era of socialism, when the state controlled everything, including credit institutions. The banking system with the leading role of the state in Russia has a long history. The prototype of modern state-owned banks were the so-called state institutions (which appeared in the XVIII century). Among the known - "Loan Bank" (established in 1733), "Loan Bank" for the nobility and "Bank for Commerce and Merchants" (both appeared in 1754). It is interesting that all three institutions faced "bad debts" and were ruined because they could not return the loans they had given.

At the end of the 18th century, state banks appeared that accepted deposits (safe cash registers), there is a practice of accumulating capital through deposits. In 1786, the "State Land Bank" was established, where the prototypes of today's mortgage programs are beginning to work. The first money transfers in the Russian Empire appeared at the beginning of the XIX century. They began to conduct the "State Commercial Bank." In the middle of the century, credit institutions were actively privatized, the share of power presence in them was reduced. By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were fewer than ten state-owned banks in Russia, about 50 private financial organizations, several hundreds of monetary mutual-aid companies, and thousands of small partnerships. After the revolution of 1917, the system of credit institutions underwent a major reorganization.

History: the state banking system in the USSR

The Bolsheviks declared an exclusive monopoly of power on banking. Commercial credit institutions were nationalized. The country's leading financial organization was the People's Bank of the RSFSR, accountable to the People's Commissariat of Finance, the work of foreign structures was banned. In the first few years of Soviet power, credit institutions were granted some independence, but in the late 1920s their work actually became a subset of national planning. There was a "State Bank of the USSR", within the party's line, control over the issuance of loans, acceptance of deposits was exercised.

In the middle of the 20th century there were very few credit institutions in the USSR. The main were "State Bank", "Stroibank", "Vneshtorgbank", as well as savings banks. During the years of perestroika, several branch financial organizations appeared: Promstroybank, Zhilsotsbank, Agroprombank, and Sberbank. A credit institution was set up to service foreign trade settlements - Vnesheconombank. By the beginning of the 1990s there were laws that created a banking system that was close to modern realities.

History: state banks in modern Russia

The Law on Banks and Banking Activities of the Russian Federation, adopted after the collapse of the USSR, established that there is a "Central Bank", there is a "Sberbank", as well as independent commercial institutions. The latter could work on the basis of a license of the Central Bank, had the right to set interest rates and perform transactions with the currency. The number of such institutions grew like a yeast, every year they appeared several hundred. Financial stability of these "banks in a hurry" left much to be desired, many were ruined. The most stable, however, were state-owned banks in Russia.

History: the main state bank of the country

"Sberbank" - a state bank, considered the leading in Russia, positions itself as an institution with a history of more than a century and a half: in 1841, by the decree of Emperor Nicholas I, savings banks appeared in Russia. Their work became "advertised" among the subjects of the state, they explained the advantages of deposits. In the period before the revolution, several million savings books were issued in these institutions , there were several thousand savings banks in the country. Despite the difficult transformations in the first years of the construction of socialism, the cash registers greatly helped the country's economy. Especially during the Great Patriotic War, when citizens could help the front with the ruble, and then restore the destroyed economy.

Savings banks existed before the banking system reforms of the late 80's - it was then that a credit institution with the usual name "Savings Bank" appeared, state, despite the market trends of perestroika. The first ATMs appeared. Largely thanks to the infrastructure developed in Soviet times, "Sberbank of Russia" became the leading credit institution of the country.

The use of state-owned banks for the economy

Socialist times are over, now our country is building a capitalist economy. It would seem that it does not matter which banks are state-owned, who owns certain shares in the ownership. There is, however, among economists the point of view that this is not so. The fact is that the interests of private banks, as a rule, do not always coincide with national ones: the latter imply that monetary processes do not burden the economy too much, and the population receives adequate services on loans and deposits. Commercial banks, in turn, take care of profits, and the social role in their understanding fades into the background. They are interested in inflating inflation, which stimulates demand for money, rising interest rates, an increase in the inflow of speculative capital into banks. The country's economy and social stability can be accompanied by crisis phenomena. This is not in the interests of the government and does not need the majority of citizens. Therefore, in order to maintain stability in the country, state-owned Russian banks are needed. The presence of such does not contradict the principles of a market economy: state-owned banks play a significant role in developed Western countries.

The negative role of state banks for the economy

There is a point of view on which some harm is caused from the activity of state banks to the national economy. Several years ago, experts analyzed the banking systems of several dozen countries for the relationship between the work of state banks and the budget deficit (that is, the level of public debt). It turned out that the authorities' obligations on external loans are lower in those countries where credit institutions are mostly private.

Where state-owned banks play a leading role, the government's debts, on average, amount to 45% of GDP. In countries where commercial financial organizations predominate, the liabilities for external loans are lower by 7%. The budget deficit, however, is slightly higher in states where private credit institutions dominate, but not much - about 0.4% of GDP.

State banks abroad: German experience

Germany is a country where state-owned banks differ greatly in their practice from private ones, despite the fact that the institutions of the second type are the majority. The main task entrusted to the German state banks is lending to projects that are significant for the entire economy. In the state-owned banks of the Federal Republic of Germany, you can draw up a very attractive loan for business: the rates are about 1.5-2% per annum. It is interesting that foreign investors can also count on these conditions, it is only necessary to show the credit institution that the project is capable of creating a tangible number of jobs and will benefit the German economy.

There are in German state-owned banks, no matter how fantastic it may sound, loans without interest and even those that can not be returned under certain conditions. All these facts indicate that the dividing line between the organization "state bank" and the credit institution of private ownership in developed capitalist Germany is much more pronounced than in Russia.