Central banker: Bank to discuss Sberbank dividends with government

MOSCOW, Jul 13 (PRIME) -- Russia’s central bank will discuss dividends of top bank Sberbank with the government, Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina said in a news conference on Thursday.

“Speaking of Sberbank dividends, we will discuss them with the government. I understand the wish of our government to receive more income from state assets…But I would like to point out that dividends of a bank and dividends of companies are slightly different things,” she said.

“The banking activity, the provision of loans is limited by the amount of capital. We set regulations that reflect the fact that a bank needs to increase capital in order to raise provision of loans. And there are no such regulations for the producing economy.”

This is why the government should make dividend decisions for banks taking into account the capital that a bank has to form. “We will discuss this approach with the Finance Ministry and with the Economic Development Ministry,” she said.

On Tuesday, the Finance Ministry said in a draft of main directions of the budget, tax, customs, and tariff policies for 2018–2020 that it expects Sberbank to pay 50% of its net profit calculated under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in dividends for 2017–2019, up from 25% of the IFRS net profit it paid in dividends for 2016.

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