Figure of the day: 80% of all Russian money is still concentrated in Moscow

Another evidence of Moscow's total hegemony in the Russian financial system is cited in their publication by experts from the Proeconomics channel.

The role of Moscow as the main financial center, in their opinion, lies not only in the fact that the main activities of banks are concentrated in the capital, but also in the fact that they have subjugated the regions. There is no such financial hyper-centralization in any major country in the world. This Moscow financial monopolization is shown in the work of economists Ageyeva and Mishura from Novosibirsk State University in the journal Voprosy Ekonomiki (Questions of Economy).

Analysts publish some figures from this work.

“The banking sector of the country tends to concentrate not even in large cities, but almost exclusively in Moscow. Already in 2004, the share of Russian banks with headquarters in Moscow exceeded 50%. There is no other comparable financial center in the country - even in St. Petersburg there are less than 5% of the country's banks. This over-concentration is ultimately explained by the position of the capital of Moscow in the conditions of concentration in the city of political power, government bodies and rental income. In regions other than Moscow and the Moscow Region, the activities of Moscow banks play an important role. Thus, in 2017, only 13% of all bank offices were represented by local banks, and the remaining 87% were bank offices from other regions, mainly from Moscow (with 50% being subdivisions of Sberbank of Russia). In 12 regions of the country, there are no local regional banks at all, and this figure is constantly growing.

The role of Moscow banks in other regions can be assessed not only by the number of offices. At the beginning of 2009 (since this year there is data), only 15% of the total volume of debt on loans to legal entities in the regions (except for Moscow and the Moscow region) was debt to local regional banks. On average, 10-30% of loans were received from banks of the same federal district (in banks of their own and neighboring regions) in different federal districts (FD), except for the Central Federal District, where most of the loans were received in Moscow banks, that is, in the banks of the Central Federal District.

By the beginning of 2017, the situation had worsened: now only 7.5% of the total volume of debt on loans to legal entities in the regions (except for Moscow and the Moscow Region) was debt to local regional banks. Lending to the population throughout the country is also mainly carried out by Moscow banks: in 2016, they issued 90% of loans received by the population outside of Moscow. The population received only 3-14% of loans (in different FDs) from banks registered in their FDs (except for the Central Federal District). In 2015, the picture is about the same, there is no data for previous years. Most (about 90%) of lending activities in the regions are carried out by Moscow banks”.

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And this is how the difference in budget revenues in Moscow and cities with a population of one million looks like - 7 times. Does this mean that the average Muscovite is 7 times better and works more than a resident of Omsk or Nizhny Novgorod?

As one of the clues to this state of affairs, experts cite the following figures.

Half of the proceeds of the 500 largest companies in the non-financial sector remain in Moscow. Moreover, one can see how this financial hypercentralism has grown over the years.

And if we add here the revenue of the financial sector, as well as budget expenditures, it turns out that 80% of all Russia's money is concentrated in Moscow. And another 10% - in St. Petersburg.

And the remaining 10% of the money is smeared in a thin layer across all other regions of Russia.

However, the experts make an important reservation: part of this 80% of Moscow money is then sent to the West. That is, in fact, Moscow performs the function of a trading post, a financial transshipment point...