Новости

8% as share of overdue loans – “overly optimistic”

By the end of the year lending to the private sector in Russia is expected to reach 10%. At the same time share of “bad” loans in portfolios of banks will be around 8% - the CB of Russia shared its most recent expectations. Experts, on the other hand, see this forecast as overly optimistic which may easily be true, especially considering the fact that previous official forecasts for inflation (for instance) used fail.

Full focus on clients

For certain reasons (whether just “old habits” or not) Russian banks prefer to act extensively rather than intensively. Of course, they have certain system of clients’ monitoring, but once a new client is found, they rarely deepen their cooperation with him or her. The general formula is “at most one or two products per person”, which is wrong. Instead they start searching for new clients, and this is an especially bad idea in today’s crisis conditions.

New pension standards for American public sector entities will expose full extent of underfunding

New accounting standards for public sector entities in the USA are ready to expose full extent of damage dealt by dishonest public servants. The New Jersey’s example is one of the most illustrative, although the story of financial fraud discovered there in 2010 is, of course, a bit old already. But this federal state again has certain accounting interest in connection to the recent publication by Fitch Ratings.

Russian small business will possibly start paying less insurance allowances

Deputies of the State Duma proposed to decrease obligatory insurance deductions for small and medium companies to 14% from today’s 30%. The government hasn’t officially considered the proposal yet, although from preliminary comments it follows that it may agree to that only if offsetting sources of income to the budget are put in place. Most likely, this will be in a form of raising the retirement age (60 years for men, 55 for women, unchanged since 2011) – which will allow economizing on pension liabilities, of course.

Fitch downgraded Ukraine’s credit rating to a pre-default level

Last Friday one of the “Big Three” rating agencies, Fitch, decreased the sovereign credit rating of Ukraine to “CC” from “CCC” despite even the program of financial aid promised by the International Monetary Fund. “CCC” is more than just speculative – it is a pre-default rating.

GAAP-IFRS.COM Digest: 9-13 February 2015

In Russia, inflation almost reached 5% since the beginning of the year already

The Federal State Statistics Service (aka “Rosstat”) informs that for the first one and a half months of 2015 prices in Russia have risen for 4.8%. It is already a very high inflation rate which hasn’t been observed since 90es probably. People are complaining more often. To compare with, in 2013 the same growth was reached only in 9 months.

Ponzi schemes made officially illegal in Russia

When there is crisis, Russian citizens are especially vulnerable to illegal financial schemes which may leave them completely without a penny (as it already was in 90es when Ponzi schemes – or “financial pyramids”, as they are referred to more commonly there, were especially widespread).

Central Bank of Russia imposes restrictions on foreign currency mortgages

Relatively not long ago we informed that in order to protect Russian borrowers from sharply devaluating rouble, lawmakers had plans to restrict if not completely prohibit loans in foreign currency in Russia. Today the Bank of Russia published its new draft directive which makes it all much harder: risk coefficients on mortgage loans issued in foreign currency will be increased in two times, and this will act as a restrictive measure.

“iGAAP 2015”, from Deloitte

Deloitte’s “iGAAP 2015” is the audit company’s series of guidance to IFRSs which is published by Wolters Kluwer (here). Experts pay most attention to practical nuances, clarifying IFRS requirements and adding their own comments and interpretations (understandably unofficial ones, but still) where the original text is silent on certain accounting aspects. Besides, they accompany their explanations with illustrative examples.