OREANDA-NEWS. The Bank of Russia has developed a draft law, which introduces a new type of a credit institution: a regional bank.

It is supposed that banks with capital of no less than 300 million rubles and assets of no more than 7 billion rubles may apply for a regional licence.

The regional banks will be operating in the territory of a specific region. They will not be entitled to open branch offices outside it, make cross-border transactions and deal with non-residents.  Besides, such banks will be bound to make interbank transactions via the central counterparty.

Simultaneously, the Bank of Russia introduces regulatory easing for the regional banks: the number of required ratios for them will be down to five, besides, information disclosure requirements will be easier.

The simplified regulation will make it possible for the regional banks to cut the costs and add to availability of banking services in the Russian Federation.

As for the rest of the banks with non-restricted banking transactions and operations, the Bank of Russia intends to tighten up minimum requirements to equity capital to 1 billion rubles and enforce consistent introduction of international standards of Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.