George Piskov wins Financial Olympus 2009 National Prize for his role in creating a Russian bank asset insurance scheme

On June 2, Moscow’s President Hotel was the venue for the Financial Olympus National Price awards ceremony at which George Piskov, Chairman of Uniastrum Bank’s Board of Directors, was presented with a diploma for his contribution to developing a bank asset insurance scheme in the Russian Federation.

The Financial Olympus Prize is awarded to the best companies and individuals working in the Russian financial sector. It is one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious business awards, helping to promote greater transparency throughout the market and to sharpen the investment appeal of Russia’s financial institutions. The nominees are selected on the basis of the National Finance Rating and the winners determined by votes cast by the Expert Council. This year’s awards were in recognition of 2009 results, with over twenty nomination categories for banks, management, insurance, and investment companies, as well as private pension funds. Diploma awards were presented to individuals for outstanding achievement in the financial sector.

Attending this year’s Financial Olympus were more than 300 guests, including the leading lights of Russia’s financial community, representatives of central government departments, analysts, academics, politicians, and public figures.

Drawing on the lessons learned by different countries when riding out the crisis shockwaves of 2008 and previous crises, the bank asset insurance scheme, the brainchild of George Piskov, is an instrument for overcoming the vexed issue of problem loans. The idea of creating such a scheme in Russia is not only well time, given the ongoing fallout from the financial crisis, but also a major step toward developing stable and sustainable banking moving forward. 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, although the success of such instruments is, however, dependent on governments imposing a special tax on banks. The scheme proposed by George Piskov on the other hand is based on the payment of voluntary insurance contributions by commercial banks.

“The bank asset insurance scheme is primarily geared toward buttressing banks’ market value,” George Piskov explains. “A sober appraisal of the current international situation tells us that another crisis is not something that can be ruled out. The scheme we propose minimizes precisely the risk that arises as a result of general crisis phenomena. In other words, the point at issue here is not about stepping in to assist this or that bank, but helping the country’s entire economy.”