Central Bank of Russia

Bank of Russia
Банк России

Headquarters	12 Neglinnaya str., Moscow, Russian Federation
Coordinates	55°45′47″N 37°37′17″E / 55.76306°N 37.62139°E / 55.76306; 37.62139Coordinates: 55°45′47″N 37°37′17″E / 55.76306°N 37.62139°E / 55.76306; 37.62139
Established	1860; 161 years ago (1860) (original institution) July 13, 1990; 31 years ago (1990-07-13) (Bank of RSFSR) December 25, 1991; 29 years ago (1991-12-25) (current name)
President	Elvira Nabiullina
Central bank of	Russia[1]
Currency	Russian ruble RUB (ISO 4217)
Reserves	$564.4 bn (As of 3 April 2020)
Reserve requirements	International Reserves
Bank rate	5.5% [2]
Preceded by	State Bank of the USSR (between 1922 and 1991)
Website	cbr.ru

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Russian: Центральный банк Российской Федерации, romanized: Tsentral'nyy bank Rossiyskoy Federatsii), also known as the Bank of Russia (Russian: Банк России, romanized: Bank Rossii), is the central bank of the Russian Federation, originally founded in 1860 as the State Bank of the Russian Empire.^[3] It is headquartered on Neglinnaya Street in Moscow. Its functions are described in the Constitution of Russia (Article 75) and in federal law.

History[]

Russian postage stamp sheet in commemoration of 150-year anniversary of setting up of Bank of Russia.

Bank of Russia headquarters in Moscow

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State Bank of the Russian Empire[]

GosBank headquarters in Saint Petersburg (1905)

The decision to create a State Bank of the Russian Empire was made by Emperor Peter III in May 1762,^[6] which was modeled on Bank of England and would have the right to issue bank notes. However, due to the coup on 28 June 1762 and the murder of the Czar, the project was not implemented. The outbreak in 1768 of the Russian-Turkish War and deficit of the state budget forced Catherine II, in turn, refer to the idea of issuing a paper money, and in December 1768 she formed the State Assignation Bank, which existed until 1818 and was replaced by the State Commercial Bank, but the first central banking body in Russia was established on 12 June [O.S. 31 May] 1860 as The State Bank (GosBank) of the Russian Empire (Russian: Государственный банк Российской Империи) which was formed on the base of the by ukaz of Emperor Alexander II. This ukaz also ratified the statutes of the bank. According to the statutes, it was a state-owned bank, intended for short-term credit of trade and industry.

In early 1917 the bank had eleven branches, 133 permanent and five temporary offices and 42 agencies. On 7 November 1917 the Russian State Bank was disestablished and replaced by The People's Bank which existed until the establishment of the Soviet Gosbank.

State Bank of the Soviet Union[]

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation[]

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia) was established 13 July 1990 as a result of the transformation of the Russian Republican Bank of the State Bank of the USSR. It was accountable to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. On 2 December 1990 the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR passed the Law on the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia), according to which the Bank of Russia has become a legal entity, the main bank of the RSFSR and was accountable to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. In June 1991, the charter was adopted by the Bank of Russia. On 20 December 1991 the State Bank of the USSR was abolished and all its assets, liabilities and property in the RSFSR were transferred to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia), which was then renamed to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia). Since 1992, the Bank of Russia began to buy and sell foreign currency on the foreign exchange market created by it, establish and publish the official exchange rates of foreign currencies against the ruble.

Role and duties[]

According to the constitution, it is an independent entity, with the primary responsibility of protecting the stability of the national currency, the ruble.^[7]

Before 1 September 2013, it was the main regulator of the Russian banking industry, responsible for banking licenses, rules of banking operations and accounting standards, serving as a lender of last resort for credit organizations. After pointed date functions and powers of CBR were significantly expanded and the central bank received the status of a mega-regulator of all financial markets of Russia.^[8]

It holds the exclusive right to issue ruble banknotes and coins through the Moscow and St. Petersburg mints, the Goznak mint.^{[citation needed]} The central bank issues commemorative coins made of precious and non-precious metals as well as investment ones made of precious metals, which are distributed inside and outside the country.^[9] In 2010 in honor of its 150th anniversary it issued a 5-kilo commemorative gold coin Alexander II.^[10]

Under Russian law, half of the bank's profit must be channeled into the government's federal budget. The Central Bank of Russia is a member of the BIS.^[11]

The Bank of Russia owns a 57.58% stake in Sberbank, the country's leading commercial bank. The Bank of Russia owns as well 100% stake in Russian National Reinsurance Company (RNRC), biggest national reinsurance company. RNRC was established for prevention possible problems with abroad reinsurance of large risks under International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis, like constructing the Crimean Bridge.^[12]

Anti-fraud activities[]

A key prospective witness in improper financial affairs was Lyubov Tarasova (Russian: Любовь Тарасова) who was a senior auditor for the Central Bank of Russia and worked for the "Unicom" (Russian: "Юникон") auditing firm which had been established on 20 August 1991 and was responsible for "checking the correctness of the documentation and the essence of business transactions that are in doubt" (Russian: "проверка правильности документального оформления и сущности хозяйственных операций, вызывающих сомнение"), but was stabbed to death in her apartment in Moscow on 15-16 October 1997.^[13][14][15]

In 2017, within the framework of a joint anti-phishing project of the Bank of Russia and search engine Yandex, a special check mark (a green circle with a tick and 'Реестр ЦБ РФ' (Bank of Russia Register) text box) appeared in the search results, informing the consumer that the website is really owned by a legally registered company licensed by the Bank of Russia.^[16][17]

Chairmen[]

Governors of the State Bank[]

The governor was appointed by the emperor of Russia.

№	Name (governor)	Photo	Term of office		Appointed by
			Start of term	End of term
1	Alexander von Stieglitz		10 June 1860	1866	Alexander II
2			1866	1881
3			1881	1889	Alexander III
4			1889	1894
5	Eduard Pleske		1894	1903	Nicholas II
6	Sergey Timashev		1903	1909
7			1909	1914
8	Ivan Shipov		1914	1917

Chairman of the board of the USSR State Bank[]

The chairman was appointed by the Premier of the Soviet Union.

���	Name (governor)	Photo	Term of office		Appointed by
			Start of term	End of term
1	Aron Sheinman[18]		1921	1924	Vladimir Lenin
2			5 March 1924	16 January 1926	Alexei Rykov
3	Georgy Pyatakov		19 April 1929	18 October 1930
4			18 October 1930	4 April 1934	Vyacheslav Molotov
5			4 April 1934	14 July 1936
6			14 July 1936	15 September 1937
7			15 September 1937	16 July 1938
8	Nikolai Bulganin		2 October 1938	17 April 1940
9			17 April 1940	12 October 1940
10	N. Bulganin		12 October 1940	23 May 1945	Joseph Stalin
11			23 May 1945	23 March 1948
12			23 March 1948	31 March 1958	Georgy Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin
13	N. Bulganin		31 March 1958	15 August 1958	Nikita Khrushchev
14			15 August 1958	14 August 1963
15			1963	1969	Alexei Kosygin
16			1969	1976
17			11 October 1976	10 January 1986	Nikolai Tikhonov
18			10 January 1986	22 August 1987	Nikolai Ryzhkov
19			22 August 1987	7 June 1989
20	Viktor Gerashchenko		7 June 1989	26 August 1991	Valentin Pavlov
21			26 August 1991	20 December 1991	Ivan Silayev

President of the Central Bank of Russia[]

President of the Board of Governors of the Central Bank
Incumbent Elvira Nabiullina since 24 June 2013
Appointer	President of Russia
Formation	31 May 1860; 161 years ago (1860-05-31)
First holder	Alexander von Stieglitz
Website	Bios

The President of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank is the head of the central banking system of the Russian Federation. The Head is chosen by the President of Russia; and serves for four-year-terms after appointment. A Head may be appointed for several consecutive terms (Sergey Ignatyev was the Governor of the Central Bank for 11 years, and he was appointed three times, in the longest serving term in post-soviet Russia).

№	Name (governor)	Photo	Term of office		Appointed by
			Start of term	End of term
1			25 December 1990	16 May 1992	Boris Yeltsin
2	Viktor Gerashchenko		17 July 1992	18 October 1994
3			19 October 1994	8 November 1995
4			8 November 1995	22 November 1995
5			22 November 1995	11 September 1998
6	Viktor Gerashchenko		11 September 1998	20 March 2002
7	Sergei Ignatyev		21 March 2002	23 June 2013	Vladimir Putin
9	Elvira Nabiullina		24 June 2013	present

Subsidiaries[]

The Central Bank of Russia holds directly significant participatory interests in a number of Russian companies:

• Sberbank of Russia (50%+1 voting share of the stock);
• Moscow Exchange (11.779% of the stock);
• Russian National Reinsurance Company (100% of the stock);
• Trust company of the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund (100% of the stock);
• Rosincas (Russian Association of Cash-in-transit).

Additionally, the Bank of Russia held earlier interests in some other Russian organizations. In particular, after the liquidation of Gosbank (State Bank of the USSR), the CBR beneficially acquired complete or controlling interests in five so-called "Russian Foreign Banks" (until 1991 – "Soviet Foreign Banks"):

• VTB Bank (99.99% of the stock – until 2002, now - 60.9% owned by The Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) );
• Donau Bank AG, Vienna;
• East-West United Bank, Luxemburg;
• Eurobank, Paris;
• Moscow Narodny Bank, London;
• Ost-West Handelsbank, Frankfurt am Main.

All of them were members of the USSR Vneshekonombank system and were transferred to the CBR in 1992 by the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Russia.^[19] For over five years – 2000 to 2005 – all stocks of the Russian Foreign Banks were being purchased from the Bank of Russia by VTB Bank.^[20][21][a] As part of the financial support to credit institutions, the Bank of Russia invests in them through the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund and acquires (on a temporary and indirect basis) shares in the equity of such banks. The first project of this kind was Otkritie FC Bank, in summer 2017.

Politics[]

In December 2014, amidst falling global oil prices, Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, capital flight, and fears of recession, the bank had increased the one-week minimum auction repo rate up by 6.5 points to 17 percent. This caused a run on the ruble, and on 29 January, the bank decreased the rate by two points to 15 percent.

In January 2015, the head of monetary policy, , a proponent of strict anti-inflation policy, was replaced by , who is "seen as more acceptable to bankers, who have called for lower interest rates".^[23]

See also[]

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Barenboim, Peter (2001). "Constitutional Economics and the Bank of Russia". Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law. 7 (1): 160.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Central Bank of Russia.

• Bank of Russia (in Russian and English)
• (in Russian) Creation of the State Bank of the Russian Empire
• (in Russian) State Bank of the Russian Empire at the site of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation
• (in English) State Bank of the Russian Empire at the site of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation