The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) exercised new money laundering laws in May and pulled the licence of Sodbiznesbank after it found more than $1bn of “suspicious transactions” during routine inspections. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said in June that bank reform is now “the top priority”.
Within weeks, another five banks were in trouble as Russia’s biggest banks cut credit lines to smaller peers and liquidity evaporated on the interbank market, a major source of capital for small banks. But when Guta Bank stopped trading at the start of July, the crisis threatened to become systematic and even the CBR got scared.
