Mikhail Yu. Alekseev, CEO of UniCredit Bank made a speech at a regular Congress of The Association of Russian Banks (ARB),  that has taken place in Moscow on April 7, 2016. This year the topic of the report was «What to do?... in the interests of banking system development and economic growth of Russia in 2016-2018».

Mikhail Alekseev devoted his speech to the main questions of competition and efficiency of banking sector and also shared a common vision of the situation from the position of foreign banks in Russia as CEO of  the largest Russian bank with foreign capital.  M. Yu. Alekseev noted that efficiency of the banking sector is declining and the situation is difficult, in particular reduction of a number of the banks causes nervousness of customers and undermine confidence to the banking system. In this case although banks with foreign capital show better results than others banks in the average within the system, there are certain measures that can have a negative impact on their operations, which will affect first of all their customers including many of the largest companies in the country. In conclusion, M. Alekseev said that he supports all the proposals contained in the report of the ARB  "What to do ", which provides advice regarding improvement of the situation in the Russian banking system, based on a thorough study of the current actual problems.

Among the key speakers at the Congress of the ARB were also the Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina and the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov.

The Association of Russian Banks (ARB) is a non-governmental&non-profit organization which represents the interests of Russian Banking community. Founded in March 1991. For over more than 20 years of its activities has united the majority of banking institutions: namely the 80% of banks which accumulate over 90% of assets of Russian banking system.