MOSCOW, December 26 (Itar-Tass) - The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has adjusted its supervision policy and introduced a 6+6 months rule for financially unstable banks in the second half of 2013, First Deputy Head of the CBR Aleksey Simanovsky told Itar-Tass.

He cited two reasons for a review - development of the legislation that allowed for a more precise evaluation of the situation in the banking sphere, and analysis of practice that indicated previous approaches to overseeing banks in need of an upgrade.

“Previously, we mainly relied on ‘therapeutic’ methods. In particular, we gave banks an opportunity to straighten out problem situations - financial stability issues or banks’ implication in dubious operations - over quite a long period of time,” Simanovsky said adding in some cases time “healed banks’ wounds, and our tactics yielded positive results” but more often, problems were not resolved but piled up.

Now the procedures will be more clearly regulated, and every bank has a chance to fix the issues.

“If a bank is financially unstable, the rule 6+6 months applies. Over the first six months the bank is to demonstrate it is firmly on the right track. In this case it is granted additional six months for the final resolution of all problems,” Simanovsky said.

The official believes experience shows that when the problems are not fixed over a reasonably short term, it is too likely they will never be fixed and may even aggravate.

“One licence revoked now means two left valid in the future, so to speak,” he said. “For the market, our decisions are signals to which it responds with a more responsible attitude to banking business.