Analysis of Bank Default Factors in 2013–2019

This paper studies bank defaults in the Russian Federation in recent years. Firstly, the Central Bank of Russia tightened prudential regulation in 2013. Secondly, a decrease in oil prices and economic sanctions resulted in a crisis in 2014–2015 with a huge depreciation of the national currency, which influenced the Russian banking sector substantially. Almost half of banks in Russia have been closed in the last 6 years. Through binary logistic models of bank defaults based on data for Q3 2013 through Q1 2019, the paper reveals the key factors which had an influence on the sustainability of Russian banks. The main result is that involvement in classical banking exposes banks to default risks. Excessive reserves appeared to be an important indicator of default as well. A special measure of liquidity creation was constructed. We found that high levels of liquidity creation increased the probability of bank failure. It is also worth mentioning that excessive liquidity creation put higher risks on a given bank in the crisis period. We can conclude that regulatory authorities should pay attention to high liquidity creators, especially in the group of small and medium-sized banks. We also found some evidence of an improvement in prudential regulation by the Bank of Russia. Separate models were estimated for the sample of 150 larger banks, which is more homogeneous and is of primary interest for the regulator. A number of variables, including the level of liquidity creation, turned out to be insignificant; however, high reserve values for possible losses still increase the probability of default to a large extent. Logistic panel regressions were also considered as an alternative specification.