Russian banks reassured depositors scrambling to withdraw savings today that the industry would stay clear of crisis at the start of what one official called a "decisive week".
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) also said it saw no broader banking crisis developing because the country's central bank had acted decisively to prevent one.
A flood of withdrawals last week caused Russia's largest private bank, Alfa Bank, to impose a 10 per cent commission on depositors taking out funds early, and pushed another large bank, Guta Bank, into the arms of a state-owned rival.
Alfa Bank said today it could scrap its commission as soon as this week as the tide of withdrawals was turning.
Guta bank, which last week said it was unable to pay depositors and perform transactions, asked depositors to report how much they were owed so it could gauge the total bill.
Russia's biggest bank, state-owned Sberbank, said its financial forecasts for the first half of 2004 were unchanged.
Economists said the banking sector was unlikely to recover until depositors regained their confidence.
The central bank tried to stem the crisis last week, by halving the obligatory reserves and assuring depositors.
Alfa said the panic had started to subside.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 hundreds of banks have sprung up, many of them undercapitalised.