The Central Bank of the Russian Federation is planning to inject more than 1 trillion Russian rubles into two troubled lenders, National Bank Trust PJSC and JSC Rost Bank, Reuters reported, citing "three sources familiar with the discussion."
This comes in addition to the approximately 1.5 trillion rubles already provided for the rescue of National Bank Trust parent Otkritie Financial Corp. Bank, Rost Bank parent B&N Bank and PAO Promsvyazbank in 2017, a source close to one of the banks reportedly said.
Both National Bank Trust and Rost Bank are beset by bad debt, and are to be recapitalized to facilitate the merger of their noncore assets, Otkritie told the newswire March 15.
Meanwhile, two sources from rival lenders in Russia confirmed that the central bank was considering the capital injection, which Reuters said is equivalent to around 11% of the capital of Russia's banking sector.
Discussions about the final recapitalization amount were still ongoing, the three sources said.
The central bank recently agreed to recapitalize B&N Bank with 56.9 billion rubles via the purchase of additional shares to be issued by the lender.
As of March 16, US$1 was equivalent to 57.56 Russian rubles.
