MOSCOW, August 28. /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Central Bank (CBR) has stripped three regional banks of licenses over their highly risky credit policies and dubious operations, the regulator said on Thursday.

The Russian Central Bank has revoked licenses from Mesed Innovation and Commercial Bank based in Dagestan in North Caucasus and the Moscow-based Mezhotraslevaya Bankovksaya Korporatsiya (MBK) and Online Bank, the regulator said.

None of the banks worked actively with households or were members of the deposit insurance system. The banks were small credit institutions operating in their home regions.

MBK held the 649th place in the Russian banking system by assets, while Mesed ranked 718th and Online Bank 781st.

The Russian regulator has revoked licenses from 50 credit institutions since the start of the year in an ongoing effort to restructure the domestic banking system and ensure its stable development. The Moscow-based First Republican Bank was the largest credit institution (109th place by assets) stripped of its banking license this year.

A total of 877 banks operated in Russia as of August 1, according to the Central Bank’s banking sector survey.

Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina has said that the effort to clean the banking sector of inefficient operators is not a temporary campaign and will continue.

The process when inefficient operators quit the market makes the banking system healthy and raises people’s confidence in the country’s financial system, she added.

“Periodic decisions related to license revocations will continue to be taken.