Otkritie Bank to Create Perpetual Capital to Finance Key Monitoring Study by HSE University
Otkritie Bank and HSE University have announced the start of a strategic partnership. One of its key areas of focus will be the creation of dedicated capital (an endowment) to finance a unique socio-economic survey (monitoring) conducted by the University. It is planned to complete the creation of the endowment within five years, with a minimum target value of 140 million rubles.
The endowment will allow to create a stable financing model for the only longitudinal (panel) survey in Russia, which tracks its ‘units of observation’ — households and their members — over time. The Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) has been conducted since 1994 and contains a wide range of indicators not found in government statistics. This makes it possible to not only conduct specific analysis (poverty, employment structure, investment strategies, etc.), but also build integrated interdisciplinary models. The content structure of the questionnaires used in RLMS-HSE meets the accepted world standard, so its data can be used in cross-country comparisons. The results of the monitoring are available to all interested parties, and are widely used by the scientific and expert communities as a reliable source of empirical data.
The endowment capital fund will be transferred to the trust management of Otkritie Management Company. With an initial capital value of 140 million rubles, the annual income from the managed trust will be at least 10 million rubles, which will allow financing of up to 30% of the total monitoring budget, starting five years after the endowment’s inception.
The strategic cooperation between Otkritie bank and HSE University began in 2020 with the creation of a basic risk department at the HSE University Graduate School of Business. Mikhail Zadornov, the President-Chairman of the Bank’s Management Board, is also a member of the Board of Trustees of HSE University. He is directly involved in the management of the University, having been a member of its Supervisory Council since its creation in 2011.
‘We are pleased to participate in the development of one of the leading universities in the country, and we consider the creation of the endowment to be a project of great social significance,’ said Mikhail Zadornov. ‘The HSE University project will make it possible to obtain objective, expert information that is essential both for representatives of business and government bodies to make strategic decisions.’