Russia is a safe haven, say bankers; local liquidity holding back supply.

Bad debts spark second wave of sector losses; CEO says low-cost, credit card model key to success.

In 2013, Russia’s central bank became a mega-regulator, overseeing a slew of credit institutions, from banks, insurance agencies, investment vehicles, micro-finance houses to pawnshops. That makes Elvira Nabiullina the most powerful central banker in modern Russian history.

Elvira Nabiullina, Euromoney’s central bank governor of the year, is staunchly sticking to her controversial crisis-fighting plan as Russia reels from its biggest financial crisis since 1998. As sanctions and falling commodity prices threaten Putin’s oil-financed state patronage, the central bank – the last bastion of economic orthodoxy – is battling to craft a new growth model. Can Nabiullina turn crisis into opportunity?

A prolific bank buyer but notoriously publicity-shy, Igor Kim is little known outside his native Russia. In his first major interview with the international media, he talks about expanding into Europe, surviving a spell on Canada’s sanctions list and why global banking models are doomed to failure.

Central Bank of Russia governor Elvira Nabiullina is using orthodox but painful policy measures to combat the oil- and sanctions-driven storm that is ravaging the economy.

Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Central Bank of Russia, has been named Euromoney’s Central Bank Governor of the Year for 2015.

More secondary listings likely; consumer, tech, export stocks in focus.

Two successful IPOs should have been good news for the country’s markets – if anyone had bothered to tell the world more about them.

Banks are prepared to sit through a couple of lean years in emerging Europe’s largest market, given that it will bounce back eventually. They might not want to get too optimistic though.

Raiffeisen insiders insist the bank’s current woes stem from circumstances beyond its control. Outsiders say the business is now paying for the sins of the past. A new leadership is desperately trying to reposition a bank whose most important markets are in turmoil, and whose ownership structure leaves it with unique capital challenges. CEO Karl Sevelda has a mountain to climb.

The rouble’s crash sent currencies tumbling across the Caucasus and Central Asia. Banks look relatively well placed to withstand an inevitable downturn. But with protracted stagnation looming, is it time for policymakers to build bridges further afield?

Emerging markets (EMs) with fiscal and external imbalances, vulnerable to capital outflows – including oil and other commodity producers struggling to balance their budgets – are among the 72 sovereigns downgraded since the end of 2014 by more than 440 economists and other country-risk experts.

Belarus’s leaders are promising a dramatic package of reforms that could overhaul the country’s sclerotic command economy and reduce its dependence on Russia. The only trouble is, no one believes them. Mixed messages to the bond markets haven’t helped.

Russia has been caught in the eye of a perfect storm. Battered by falling oil prices, US and EU sanctions and a dramatic market correction as the rouble was allowed to float, the currency has been in free-fall and liquidity has largely evaporated, with many brokers ceasing rouble trading altogether.

As Europe has stagnated since the financial crisis, Russia proved an invaluable source of returns for a handful of lucky western banking groups. But with Putin on the offensive, the rouble on the slide and recession on the horizon, its days as an engine of regional growth look to be over.

The growing likelihood of an economic crisis in Russia will have a major impact on global markets in 2015.

Rouble brews trouble for Russia

Moscow’s revamped stock exchange has everything it takes to be a global player, with the exception of supply and demand. Has Russia’s isolation put a dampener on its ambitious domestic capital markets development programme?

The latest results of a systemic risk index reveal elevated risks in Russia, Portugal and France but a generally marked improvement across the rest of Europe.

Analysts support the Central Bank of Russia’s (CBR) response to the collapse of the rouble, arguing it will shift market expectations and could stabilize the currency in the medium-term. In an interview with Euromoney before the move, a CBR official discusses the opportunities and challenges in the regime shift.

While sanctions are hitting the Russian markets and pushing up interest rates, senior executives at Sberbank and potash producer Uralkali tell Euromoney the country’s banks and corporates are looking internally and to the east for new sources of financing. But with Russia sliding towards recession, liquidity is vanishing.

I was intrigued to see that Blackstone, the leading private equity firm, is disengaging from Russia.

Sector profitability holding up; central bank adds dollars to liquidity provision.

CEE enthusiasts should not despair just yet. A number of the clouds handing over the region might turn out, on closer inspection, to have a silver lining.

Incensed by their failure to reform, Brics policymakers have established a flawed rival to the World Bank and IMF. Rhetoric aside, the west dismisses emerging-market dissent over the broken financial architecture at its peril.

Philosopher, philanthropist and father of 23 – Roman Avdeev is a far cry from the stereotype of Russian oligarch. Yet his ownership of Credit Bank of Moscow, one of the country’s fastest-growing lenders, along with canny deal-making in sectors from retail to pharmaceuticals, is fast propelling him up the rich list. And his status as one of Russia’s most independent billionaires gives him a unique insight into the country’s current pariah status.

Russia’s consumer lenders are the modern face of Russian finance, and could prove resilient to the current crisis.

Sanctions overs the conflict in Ukraine have closed off western capital markets to some Russian companies, giving Asia an opportunity to take a greater role. But an easy ride in the east is not guaranteed.

The escalating conflict in Ukraine and sanctions placed on Russia by the EU and the US are pushing private Russian money into Asian wealth centres and encouraging the country’s corporates to seek new sources of funding in the region.