According to him, the banking sector is being modernized, competition is growing, and the Central Bank is becoming more intolerant to unfair competition on the banking market. “We do not want weak banks to join the deposit insurance system, and the Central Bank should prevent that,” Mr. Kozlov said.

He said banks had begun correcting their mistakes. “This is a complex process, and it goes quickly, and there is nothing terrible about it,” Mr. Kozlov noted. Not only the Central Bank, but bankers themselves realized that mistakes should be corrected, he stressed.

Commenting on rumors about the coming banking crisis, Mr. Kozlov said those rumors were spread by people interested in discrediting the Central Bank as a controlling institution. “There is no crisis, and we know who did it,” he said, adding that this was an “example of unfair competition”.

Over the past week, Mr. Kozlov has been reassuring Russian bankers. “There are no fundamental economic reasons for the Central Bank to worry,” he said on Monday. According to him, the Central Bank did not want to unnerve traders.

“Last Friday, there was some uncertainty on the interbank market. If liquidity drops, the Central Bank will refinance the banking system,” Mr. Kozlov stressed. He urged bankers not to panic.