(Source: http://goldmaximum.ru)

Master-Bank, one of the hundred largest Russian banks in terms of assets and one of the top five by number of ATMs and issued cards, has its license revoked. It seems like this case will force Deposit Insurance Agency to set up a new record on paying out compensations. The total amount of individual deposits placed in Master-Bank nears 47 billion rubles.

Experts are surprised with license revocation, since one of the members of bank's board of directors is President's cousin, Igor Putin. The Central Bank revoked the license of Master-Bank on November 20. ATMs are not working; the staffs of bank branches do not perform any operations pleading a technical failure. Banks that agreed upon sharing of ATM network encourage their customers not to use Master-Bank ATMs. Among them are such large banks like Credit Bank of Moscow, MDM Bank, Promsvyazbank, Alfa-Bank, Rosbank, Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Russian Agricultural Bank. According to the release of Central Bank the reasons of recalling the bank's license are data misreporting, low-quality loans and capital loss. Since Master-Bank is the member of deposit insurance system, depositors will obtain compensation.

Meanwhile, as the press release of Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) says, payments will start no later than December 4. In addition, the agency chief Yuri Isaev said earlier that decrease of DIA funds efficiency level below 5% will be a critical mark. At last reporting date it was 5.2%. According to bank statements, on November 1 there were 46.9 billion rubles of private deposits held in the bank. At the same time, in the opinion of Maxim Osadchy, the head of analytical department of the Corporate Finance Bank, most likely DIA possesses enough money for payouts, but still the Agency will overcome the 5% fund efficiency bound.

Hence, in any case, for DIA revoking of Master-Bank's license will be a record-breaking in terms of payment amount. Up to this moment, revoking of "Pushkino" bank’s license has been the most serious case. Back then DIA was obliged to pay out about 20 billion rubles. Thereafter, concerning about the fate of DIA funds, The State Duma decided not to raise promptly deposit insurance amount from 700 thousand to 1 million rubles.

Master-Bank first faced problems last summer. It coincided with the appointment of Elvira Nabiullina head of Central Bank. The current revocation of bank license surprised experts. As per Maxim Osadchy, the bank was suspected of being involved in illegal cashing operations long time ago, but before the new management was assigned, the Central Bank of Russia did not disturb it.

The thing is that the bank, according to experts, had a very solid cover-up. President Vladimir Putin’s cousin Igor Putin takes part in the board of directors of Master-Bank. Besides that, the chairman of board of directors is a business tycoon Boris Bulochnik. The Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev's younger nephew Alexei Patrushev was employed in the bank as well.

The vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin believes that probably Igor Putin does not take part in Kremlin's “siloviki” clan and is not a significant personality in country’s economy, this is why the new Central Bank management could revoke the license of Master-Bank.