The inert cash register: how to revitalize the Russian capital market
The capital market is not fully involved in Russia. The Central Bank is discussing measures for its development with the government. This was stated by the head of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina at the SPIEF. Izvestia has studied the reasons and what ways will help develop the domestic capital investment market.
Causes of problems
Indeed, the capital market is not fully involved. This is primarily due to the very small range of opportunities for both individuals and institutional investors — most of the traded companies are "mature" and bring low income to holders, and the number of new IPOs is still extremely low. Potential does not turn into real assets, Sergei Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service, told Izvestia. In the context of tight monetary policy, stock market returns remain extremely low.
— It is necessary to increase transparency in the financial market, and to disseminate corporate governance indices for companies. A non—credit rating tool being developed for stocks could help a lot here," the expert noted. — An increase in the number of high-quality IPOs on the market is also required. Loosening monetary policy may help here, but educating potential issuers on how to conduct an IPO is also important.
In addition, the expert emphasizes that it would significantly help to reduce the transaction costs of issuers when entering an IPO — so far they are very high, especially for small and medium-sized companies.
However, according to him, further development of the companies' strategies to create shareholder value is required. In this sense, the Bank of Russia needs efforts to encourage issuers to create such systems and measure the effectiveness of their approaches to creating and maintaining shareholder value.
— In addition, it is necessary to increase the pace of privatization with the entry of privatized companies into the financial market. The main thing here is not even the privatization of state property, but rather the stimulation of family businesses and businesses that bought up assets of foreign companies as a result of their exit, to "share" control with new shareholders, — said Sergey Grishunin.
The entire capital market in Russia consists of just over 600 companies, and 2/3 of them are bond issuers, and shares are traded in just over 200 companies, Pavel Mitrofanov, CEO of the Expert Business Solutions analytical company, told Izvestia. For an economy that is one of the ten largest in the world, such figures look depressing.
— The Russian financial system was formed as a banking system, meaning that banks, not the stock market, were and still are the main source of financing for businesses. Therefore, even despite the investment boom in the stock market and the influx of several trillion rubles from 36 million people, the picture has not changed fundamentally. Most of the money is deposited in banks," the expert believes.
Changing the situation
Investors and the capital market love stability — without it, the situation is unlikely to change dramatically, Dmitry Borodin, associate professor of Finance at Bauman Moscow State Technical University, told Izvestia.
Participation in the availability of "long money" can be very active on the part of the state, including through the mechanism of public-private partnership, Andrei Girinsky, associate professor at the Faculty of Economics of the RUDN University, told Izvestia. Optimal fiscal policy is important for the development of the capital market, taking into account the development opportunities of business entities at the micro level.
— At the same time, it is necessary to work towards long-term sustainability of economic growth and predictability of development. This applies, among other things, to such important macroeconomic parameters as inflation, key interest rate, currency exchange rate, and many others. When planning the local development of the capital market and other financial market segments, it is necessary to take into account the impact of external shocks, in turn related to globalization processes, as well as reverse trends," he recalled.
The ways to develop the capital market will lie in two planes: stimulation and improvement, along with cheaper infrastructure, Pavel Mitrofanov confirmed. In the second part, progress is already impressive — our exchanges are technologically advanced, and the infrastructure of the digital financial assets market (CFA) is already operating for specific tasks. IR practices are improving before our eyes, and the rating coverage of the market is quite high.
— But in terms of incentives, the reserve for improvements seems significant. From what is on the surface, we need to reduce the key interest rate and the cost of money. More complex and expensive measures include more substantial tax deductions related to long—term investments in stocks, subsidizing issuers, and changing investment declarations of insurers and non—governmental pension funds, the expert believes.
Of particular note is the issue of the country discount, which greatly affects the propensity of owners to bring their companies to the IPO. As long as the risks of Russian business are assessed highly, discounting in determining placement prices will be extremely conservative. This means that the gap between investors' expectations and owners' willingness to price will be large.
The share of capitalization in GDP is decreasing, instead of growing, Alexander Abramov, head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Institutions and financial markets at the Presidential Academy, noted in an interview with Izvestia. Also, not a single IPO was conducted in 2025. One of the reasons is the insufficiently effective operation of long—term savings mechanisms.
— In 2025, the flow of public funds to the relevant programs slowed down, and the number of
AIS-3 (a new type of individual investment account that appeared last year. — Ed.) is growing extremely slowly. This can only partly be explained by the high stakes — in my opinion, the problems lie in the operating conditions of these products," he stressed. — In particular, the population is offered to invest for a period of 5-10 years, while most people are ready to place funds for a maximum of 1-3 years. It may be worth making the long-term savings program and the AIS-3 more customer-oriented.
The issue of developing the stock market for financing small and medium-sized businesses is currently being actively discussed, Pavel Samiev, chairman of the Opora Russia Committee on Financial Markets, told Izvestia.
— For example, the focus is on such a segment as small technology companies, which can really become a locomotive in a number of industries and needs to attract affordable financing. It is the issue of connecting stock market instruments to this process that can really have a good effect," he noted.
Izvestia sent requests to the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, but no responses had been received at the time of publication.
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