The Great Debate UK

from Breakingviews:

Whatever happened to the Russian bank crisis?

Just a few months ago, there was widespread alarm in Russia about the state of the country's banking sector.

In June, rating agency Fitch predicted that impaired loans would reach 25 percent of all loans by the end of this year, requiring at least $22 billion in additional capital. Other analysts warned that the final bill could reach $60 billion. But as the smoke clears, it seems increasingly obvious that these concerns were greatly overblown.

This week, the Russian government is set to amend the budget, slashing the amount of money that will be set aside to fund recapitalization of the country's banks.

It had originally budgeted $13.8 billion during the remainder of this year and next, on top of $24 billion already provided to recapitalize banks since the crisis began. Now, it intends to reduce the size of the new injection to just $3.4 billion.