Аннотация:The Russian banking system is in its worst crisis since 1998, a fact made particularly evident by the collapse in share prices for every financial service company, together with the fall of Russian stock markets. However, differently from 1998, the banking system finds itself in a better position thanks to the previous macroeconomics boom, which lasted almost ten years. The highly fragmented structure of the banking sector still relies heavily on state banks, but the contribution by foreign banks as well as local private banks has increased steadily in the last years. We discuss the major improvements and weaknesses that currently characterize the Russian banking system, together with systemic risk, which still plays the major role in such a market.