Using data on 17 listed public banks from Russia over the period 2008 to 2016, we analyze whether international oil prices affect the bank stability in an oil-dependent country. We posit that a decrease in international oil prices has a negative long-run macroeconomic impact for an oil-exporting country, which further deteriorates the bank financial stability. More specifically, a decrease in international oil prices leads for an oil-exporting country as Russia to a currency depreciation and to a deterioration of the fiscal stance. In addition, given the positive correlation of oil and stock prices documented by numerous previous studies, a decrease in international oil prices represents a negative signal for the stock markets investors, negatively affecting banks share prices and thus, their capacity to generate sustainable earnings. In this context, the bank financial stability can be menaced. With a focus on public listed banks and using a Pool Mean Group (PMG) estimator, we show that an increase in international oil prices and in the price to book value ratio has a long-run positive effect on Russian public banks stability, and conversely. While positive oil-price shocks contribute to bank stability in the long run, an opposite effect is recorded for negative shocks. However, no significant impact is documented in the short run. Our findings are robust to different bank stability specifications, different samples and control variables.
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