Ilya Filatov: Biography and Career

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Ilya Filatov · Ilya Valentinovich Filatov · Ilya V Filatov · Filatov Ilya · Filatov Ilja · Filatov I.V. · Filatov Ilya Valentinovich · Илья Филатов · Илья Валентинович Филатов · Филатов Илья · Филатов Илья Валентинович · Филатов И.В. · Ilja Valentinovitsj Filatov · Ilja Filatov · Filatov Ilja Valentinovitsj · ايليا فالنتينوفيتش فيلاتوف · イリヤ・ヴァレンティノヴィッチ・フィラトフ · 伊利亚·瓦连廷诺维奇·菲拉托夫 · איליה פילטוב

Ilya Filatov is one of the leading individuals in Russia's financial sector. His career started during the most formative period in the history of the country's modern banking industry and he has been working for various lending institutions for almost thirty years since then. This article covers his professional evolution.

Ilya Filatov. a detailed biography

The future finance professional was born in 1976 in Klin, a mid-sized town north-west of Moscow. The early youth of Filatov Ilya Valentinovich coincided with the sweeping social, political and economic reforms in the USSR known as Perestroika.

Prior to 1986, the Soviet banking system comprised just four components - the country's financial sector was dominated by Gosbank (the State Bank of the USSR, the ultimate lender), its savings and deposits division (precursor of the present-day Sberbank), Stroibank (Construction Bank) and Vneshtorgbank (Foreign Trade Bank). As the country moved on to become a market economy the financial landscape was deeply transformed. By January 1990, a total of 225 new commercial financial institutions had been registered and their number continued to grow.

Theoretically, any depositor could become a minority shareholder while major stakes were claimed by those, who had big money at their disposal. By the late 1990s, there were some 2,000 active banks in Russia.

Local banking industry's explosive growth proved to be beneficial for Ilya Filatov, whose career evolved to be closely related to the financial sector, as people with relevant training and education were in great demand on the job market and got a chance to build a meteoric career.

By mid-1990s, Filatov Ilya Valentinovich was one of the most promising and sought-after young economists. When he had completed a course in financial management at the Moscow Waterway Transport Academy, the 20-year-old recent graduate began to work in the banking sector in 1996. Ilya Filatov's starting position was a senior economist in the forex operations department at Elbim Bank.

It should be noted that at that time just six years had passed since the moment when the country discarded the Soviet style administratively fixed exchange rate policy and commercial banks began to sell US dollar cash at market-based rates. The foreign exchange clearing and settlement system was still evolving, both legally and in practical terms. Thus, people who had to process and manage forex operations were expected to be able to focus and work under pressure, and Filatov Ilya, the future top manager, did possess these personal qualities.

Even though this period in Ilya Filatov's career was not long - it lasted for just three years - it helped him to acquire and develop the skills required to move onto the next stage of his professional evolution. As an experienced specialist he was offered a position at another Moscow bank, in the forex assets and liabilities management department.

Ilya Filatov's career was progressing as the country's banking industry continued to evolve. In the late 1990s, first electronic forms of money began to come into widespread use. Within a decade, the digital payments and settlements system had evolved from a service for the privileged few, who had been allowed and could afford to travel abroad in the Soviet era, into a commonly available instrument.

As a result, financial institutions began to set up whole departments to process and manage bank card operations, and they needed highly skilled professionals to man and manage such units. So, Filatov Ilya Valentinovich was offered the position of a line manager in the relevant department at Platina Bank.

In the early 2000s, both large-scale private businesses and state-owned enterprises began to introduce payroll bank cards for their employees, signing up for corporate payroll projects offered by the banks. Exponential growth in the number of bank card holders increasingly encouraged retailers and service providers to offer their customers options for using their bank cards for payment.

This made bank card services spreading on a much larger scale. Filatov Ilya Valentinovich also moved onto a higher professional level. In 2004, he was invited to head the bank card services department at Credit Bank of Moscow - a much larger institution than Platina Bank by assets and still in expansion mode. Now, Credit Bank of Moscow is one of the country's top ten private lenders both in terms of assets and by its service quality.

Ilya Filatov's next job change was linked to tectonic shifts within Russia's financial system. The country was gradually moving away from the economic liberalism under which state regulators involvement in the banking sector had been minimal. Thus, in 1997, when the industry was almost entirely regulated by market forces, there were 2,007 active lending institutions in Russia. The country's default in 1998 highlighted smaller banks' inability to help the national economy stay afloat in a turbulent situation as well as their failure to meet their own obligations.

In the early 2000s, the banking sector saw the beginning of a consolidation process, viewed as necessary to make the country' financial system stronger and more stable. Under these circumstances Ilya Valentinovich Filatov in 2005 accepted an offer to join the team of Avtobank-Nikoil, which was later merged into a larger financial corporation known as UralSib Bank. Filatov also took part in the merger processes, as shown below.

Ilya Filatov: in the prime of his career

In 2005, Avtobank-Nikoil, although a relatively small lending institution, seemed rather attractive to potential investors by the composition of its balance sheets, and its owners were actively discussing potential merger with UralSib Group.

Ilya Valentinovich Filatov had probably been aware of the potential merger when he was considering quitting Credit Bank of Moscow and joining Avtobank-Nikoil. He may have viewed it as a chance to become part of the management team at one of the country's top banks.

In September 2005, Avtobank-Nikoil owners structured an M&A deal, and when it was completed the bank ceased to be a standalone legal entity and its assets were taken over by UralSib.

UralSib is known to have taken over a dozen of smaller lenders within a few years. It was an unprecedented case for the banking industries of Russia and other post-Soviet nations. UralSib emerged as top-ten bank in Russia and one of the country's five most recognizable financial institutions, whereas Ilya Valentinovich Filatov stepped up to the second-highest position in the bank's governance board.

Meanwhile, a global financial crisis was brewing. It started in 2007, when a subprime mortgage collapse in the US triggered a stock market crash and a cascade of major bank failures in America. As an insightful financial professional, Ilya Filatov, who had always been building a career in the banking industry, realised that the credit crunch was about to cross the Atlantic and the Russian banks would inevitably be hit badly by it.

It is widely believed that the best possible investment to be made during crisis is education. Ilya Valentinovich Filatov followed the common wisdom and went to one of the country's best business schools - at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration - to study large-scale financial institutions management. He completed the course in 2009.

This school is known for both superior curriculum and highly knowledgeable MBA students - most of them are actual top managers, representing various sectors of the economy. Thus, the school's MBA program alumni make up a pool of experts ready to share their experiences with their fellow graduates, Filatov Ilya also joined this pool.

The global financial crisis hit Russia's banking sector in summer 2008, when the country's stock market collapsed - in line with Filatov's projections. Investors were shedding Russian assets, expecting deeper declines amid widespread concerns about some risks associated with the Russian economy.

According to the World Bank, the situation in Russia was exacerbated by an excessive debt burden in the private sector amid the triple shock of capital outflows, tightening conditions for external borrowing and adverse conditions for international trade. However, despite the turbulence the country's modernized banking system turned out to be far more steadfast than in the late 1990s. Filatov Ilya points out that the country's major lenders were not hit too hard.

In 2009, a team led by Filatov Ilya offloaded some bad debts to improve UralSib's asset quality. This offloading, as well as some other steps undertaken by Filatov, made the bank a pioneer of the sector's post-crisis recovery.

After that UralSib, where Ilya Filatov was one of the top executives, launched an aggressive loan portfolio expansion via POS-marketing channels. In particular, the bank's mortgage loans were offered by real estate agencies and developers in the run up to closing a deal with the buyer.

Ilya Filatov's initiatives helped the bank to outperform its competitors in terms of mortgage underwriting within just three years since the outbreak of the crisis. The instruments he introduced continue to be used at UralSib to this day, helping the bank to retain leading positions in the rating of Russia's top lending institutions.

Ilya Filatov: today

Filatov quit UralSib in 2014. It was when one of Russia's Big Three telecom operators began to develop its own banking services and was looking for an experienced manager with a good track record in the financial industry to lead the project. Eventually, Ilya Filatov was selected to lead the project as vice president and his financial career has been linked to the high-tech industry ever since.

Filatov-led team is acting as a venture investor with a focus on cutting-edge fintech projects. Their projects include finance management app, digital banking platform, etc. Filatov's ambition is to create the most advanced and innovative banking service.

Judging by the already achieved results, Ilya Valentinovich Filatov's efforts have not been wasted. The bank is winning over customers from its competitors and setting ambitious goals, such as to raise its ROI to 20%.