OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2009. No.855 Ruling of the Government of the Russian Federation of 29th October 2009 introduced amendments to the Rules for granting subsidies in 2009 to the Russian credit organizations from the federal budget to compensate shortfall in income on the credits, granted by the Russian credit organizations in 2009 to physical persons for buying cars (the Rules), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Now any credit organization, wishing to take part in the Soft Auto Loan Programme for physical persons, will have such a possibility. To take advantage of it, a credit organization must from 1st November - 1st December 2009 file a free-format petition to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Commerce, indicating its intention to receive compensation for shortfall in income on the credits from the federal budget.

Initially the Programme was only open for those credit organizations, for which the share of the Russian Federation of the Bank of Russia of their authorized capital was not less than 50% as well as credit organizations - their subsidiaries.

In July 2009 the banks whose own assets were no less than 70 billion dollars were also allowed to participate in the Programme. However, those changes did not increase significantly the number of credit organizations who could receive subsidies from the federal budget because only seven credit organizations met the criteria specified in the Programme.

To ensure that banks file duly prepared documents required to the subsidies, the new, October edition of the Rules provides for refusal to grant subsidies to those credit organizations which on a regular basis (more than three times) filed documents that did not comply to the established requirements.

The amendments introduced by No.855 Ruling were prepared upon an imitative of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, with support of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Finances and the Ministry of Economic Development.

In the FAS Russia's opinion, increasing the number of participants of the Soft Auto Loan Program ensures equal access to financial resources of all credit organizations and stimulates competition on the banking market.

Expanding the list of credit organizations participating in the Programme will enable increasing the scope of auto loans and resolving a macroeconomic goal of increasing the sales of Russian car-makers.