OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2010. Addressing the conference, George Piskov, head of ARB’s Distressed Assets Action Committee, reported the findings of a research study conducted by the Committee into bad assets currently held by Russian banks. The research report, while compiling and analyzing the resultant qualitative and quantitative indicators, also mooted potential development scenarios for the country’s banking sector in the post-crisis period.

One way of overcoming the problem of distressed assets in the banking industry is a bank asset insurance scheme. The idea of creating such a scheme in Russia – the brainchild of George Piskov himself – is not only well timed, given the ongoing fallout from the financial crisis, but also a major step toward developing stable and sustainable banking moving forward. It is Mr. Piskov’s conviction that the scheme’s main strength derives from the fact that it is market driven. Many countries, for example, have seen fit to incorporate this type of instrument into their anti-crisis programs. While the success of such instruments, however, is dependent on governments imposing a special tax on banks, the scheme proposed by the Distressed Assets Action Committee is based on the payment of voluntary insurance contributions by commercial banks.