At its maiden session Tuesday, the Bank Control Committee considered applications from 26 crediting institutions willing to join the deposit insurance scheme and granted admission to each of them, Andrei Kozlov, First Deputy Chair of the Central Bank, said at a subsequent press conference.
Kozlov announced that the Bank Control Committee would gather for its next session on September 28 and that it would examine applications from several other banks then. The number of the aspiring banks to be considered for admission would be determined immediately before the session, added the Central Bank official.
Later on, the Committee will be holding sessions on a weekly basis, or even more often that that, Kozlov said. He reminded his audience that the committee was to consider initial applications for admission to the deposit insurance scheme before March 27, 2005, and reapplications, before September 25, 2005.
According to Kozlov, the deposit insurance law ensures four phases in examining banks' applications at the Central Bank: a preliminary analysis of the situation at the applying bank, an inspection, an analysis of the inspection's findings, and a final decision by the Bank Control Committee.
All in all, 1,137 banks have applied for admission to the deposit insurance scheme. The preliminary analysis has been done on all of the applicants; the inspections have been completed at over 530.
"Over a hundred positive resolution drafts have come in from the regions; they are now being considered by the Central Bank's top management," Kozlov said.
"The admission of this or that bank to the deposit insurance scheme does not mean that its performance is better than that of counterparts to be taken in later on," the Central Bank Deputy Chair pointed out. The timeframe for banks' entry into the scheme depends only when they submit their applications and on how fast the Central Bank considers them, he said.
"We expect a vast majority of the applicant banks to gain admission to the scheme," said Kozlov.
