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Russian Standard Bank under Fire
The Prosecutor General's Office's instructions to carry out a full audit of Russian Standard Bank was carried out with bravado in some places. The prosecutor's office in Volgograd disputed the legality of the bank's crediting conditions in court on Friday, demanding that a commission on the opening of an account with the bank when taking out credit at a retail chain be repealed. Market insiders call it a political campaign. The large number of complaints against the bank is undesirable in a pre-election year. The prosecutor has called on the FSB, Federal Antimonopoly Service and Federal Financial Markets Service to defend the banks clients.
The same Volgograd prosecutor filed a suit against Renaissance Bank two months ago on the behalf of a group of individuals demanding that the same commission be found illegal. That case was rejected in favor of arbitration. This time, the prosecutor is not representing any parties but seeking to set a precedent on the repeal of the commission by all Volgograd bank. At Russian Standard Bank, they noted that the opening of an account with a bank providing credit is required by Russian law. Legal experts have also expressed doubt about the bases for the Volgograd suit.
The bank is nonetheless taking the suit against it seriously. Kommersant has learned that Russian Standard executives have held a series of meetings with representatives of the Central Bank, State Duma, banking associations and government agencies in recent weeks. A Central Bank source noted that “the volume of complaints” by borrowers against the bank “exceeded the allowable norm, and not only to us, but to Rospotrebnadzor [the federal consumer protection agency], the prosecutor and sometimes complaints may find their way to the presidential administration.” Rospotrebnadzor chairman Gennady Onishchenko noted that, of 700 complaints against banks in Krasnoyarsk Territory, 560 concerned Russian Standard Bank. That bank has provided 147 billion rubles in credit to the public as of April 1, 2007. Only Sberbank has given out more credit.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 09, 2007
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