On 3 October, the 8th St. Petersburg International Forum hosted the conference Gazprombank Day. The Land of Cooperation. The participants spoke about Gazprombank's new products and services for enterprises and organizations.
Gazprombank is one of the three largest banks in Russia in all major fields and ranks third in the list of banks in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of net worth.
“The bank’s assets are more than 6 trillion rubles, the loan portfolio is approaching 4 trillion rubles, while the portfolio is balanced in rubles and currency. Despite the fact the state is one of our shareholders, we remain a completely proprietary organization competing with the largest commercial banks," – says Andrey Smirnov, Executive Vice President of Gazprombank.
According to him, the main purpose of the bank is lending to individuals and commercial enterprises. However, Gazprombank is also a powerful investment bank that provides its clients with all possible types of investment banking operations. The bank also provides services to the largest companies – the leaders of the Russian economy.
At the conference, experts from Gazprombank made an overview of the situation on the global financial markets and its impact on the Russian economy. According to Egor Susin, the Head of the Gazprombank's Strategic Development and Economic Forecasting Department, the global economic growth is going to slow down in the coming years. Structural problems prevent the banking system from returning to high sustainable growth rates.
“The growth cycle of developed economies is coming to an end; they will not be able to maintain high rates of development, since the consumer sector is virtually not growing. The world economy has lapsed into a structural crisis, when the incomes of the middle class are not growing, and the growth of the economy is eventually based on them. At the same time, the debt load of both developed and developing countries has increased significantly. In general, increased protectionism will adversely affect economic growth. At the present moment, developed countries have developed a change request, and this request will greatly influence the political situation, ” – says Egor Susin.
One of the main trends of the modern world economy – the value of assets – is at a record level relative to the household income. And that's where a risk lies, since a change in market conditions is often accompanied with turbulence in the markets.
As for assessment of the economic situation in Russia, it is fundamentally stable. The budget rule – the basis of the budget policy – limits the maximum possible expenses of the federal budget to the sum of interest payments on the state debt of non-oil-and-gas revenues and oil and gas revenues at the base price for oil. in 2019, the base oil price for oil was set at $ 41.6 per barrel, with the projected rate of 63.9 rubles per dollar. The high price of oil, provided that the rule remains unchanged, will allow to have a federal budget surplus in 2018–2023, while maintaining a high income growth (about 7% per year).
"In the current conditions, we are in a fairly stable position as a result of a conservative policy," – Egor Susin went on to say.
Yulia Lifar, Executive Director of Gas and Oil Sector Financing Directorate of Gazprombank, spoke about the unique experience of Gazprombank in project financing. At the end of 2017, the bank was listed among the Top 15 European banks – the leading organizers of project financing according to IJ Global.
“The main areas of lending are the construction of new industrial and production facilities, technical re-equipment, expansion and reconstruction of existing enterprises, construction of residential and commercial real estate facilities, – said Yulia Lifar. – We credit such industries as manufacturing, power generation, real estate, agriculture, infrastructure, communications, space industry and many others.”
Gazprombank also conducts a wide range of documentary letters of credit operations in accordance with international and Russian practice, including non-standard and complex-structured schemes using a letter of credit as a tool for trade financing.
“This allows us to finance foreign trade transactions of our clients, including by attracting funds from foreign financial institutions”, – says Alexander Biryuchinsky, Vice President – Head of Documentary Transactions and Trade Finance Department of Gazprombank.
As part of the conference Gazprombank Day. The Land of Cooperation, products were also presented in the sphere of contract banking, working capital financing, complex transaction banking solutions and a number of others.