The media reported that the Central Bank Directorate for the North-West blocked the correspondent account “…

Media report that the Central Bank Directorate for the North-West blocked the correspondent account of City Invest Bank (St. Petersburg), effectively stopping the bank’s work and immobilizing client funds in its accounts. Correspondent account is the main current account of any bank through which banks make all payments with their counterparties. The Central Bank blocked the account of City Invest Bank by decision of the Arbitration Court of the Novgorod Region, which at the end of March recognized the shareholder of City Invest Bank Sergei Kamzin (pictured) as the organizer of the deliberate bankruptcy scheme of JSC Deka (Kvass Nikola, Novgorod Region). The bankruptcy of the plant resulted in its complete shutdown and the dissolution of the staff of 600 people; a criminal case was opened on this topic. Now the court and the Central Bank have seized the account of City Invest Bank, demanding that the bank, Kamzin personally and his bank partner Boris Bashkovich (co-organizer of the bankruptcy scheme) compensate Deka’s losses for 2 billion rubles. It is almost impossible to pay this money at once: the amount of claims exceeds the equity capital of City Invest Bank (RUB 1.6 billion). The situation threatens the introduction of temporary administration at the bank by the Central Bank – the regulator has the right to do this if the credit institution does not make mandatory payments in favor of its counterparties for more than 14 days in a row (the account was frozen on April 7). Clients of City Invest Bank know nothing about the situation; the bank has not made any official announcements about what is happening. As part of the Deka bankruptcy case, documents have already been seized from the bank twice, and the bank’s shareholders have a reputation for being frostbitten: for example, in the fall of 2021, another shareholder of the bank, Leonid Shorcher, was caught on camera receiving $2.5 million in cash from the ex-senator Alexey Lysyakov, and the money disappeared. After their disappearance, Lysyakov openly accused City Investment Bank of conducting “dubious cash transactions,” but no checks on this topic followed at the bank. Since 2018, the Central Bank Main Directorate for the North-West has been headed by Irina Petrova.