Hidden “holes” in the capital of not yet failed banks in Russia: An estimate of the scope of potential losses

Recently, the Bank of Russia has begun to actively fight against the balance sheet falsification in banking and withdrew every third bank’s license during the last four years. In the majority of cases, the regulator revealed hidden “holes” in the capital of bankrupted financial institutions; the total sum of already revealed negative capital amounts to -2,1% of Russian GDP in 2015. However, until now the process of clearing the banking system has affected only small and medium-sized banks (with few exceptions). What happens if this process touches on larger banks? How many new episodes of “holes” in the capital can we face in the near future and what is their potential size in case of detection? Our estimations, based on Heckman selection models, show that from 300 to400 out of 641 Russian banks that were active in the mid-2016 might already hide “holes” in the capital from -3,6% to -6,8% of GDP. The analysis at the level of different groups of banks - among the top 30 in terms of assets, other banks from the first hundred and banks outside the top 100 - shows that the greatest loss is localized in the last group.