17/7/2025–|Last update: 18:00 (Mecca time)
Senior executives in some of the largest Russian banks in secret discussed a request for financial savings with funding from the state if the level of troubled loans continues to deteriorate during the next year.
I studied at least 3 banks, classified by a bank Russia As it is of regular importance, the possibility of the need to re -fund it within the next 12 months, Bloomberg quoted current and former officials and documents that she had seen.
The banks discussed internally how to offer the possibility of a financial rescue request with Central Bank If it is necessary, only Bloomberg, this scenario comes that its evaluation of the quality of its loans (its payment opportunities) is much worse than the official data shows.
Used loans
The agency quoted the two exporters, which they did not call, as saying that any financial rescue request depends on the continued high volume of chains during the next year, however, they confirmed that the discussions have become more necessary in the Russian banking sector.
Theoretically, the banking system has relatively healthy health, as banks make strong profits even in light of the rise in non -carrier loans for companies and families, with an arrival interest rate The main bank is to a standard level of approximately 20%.
Officially, the low levels of debt are still much lower than those registered in the previous financial crises, which the Russian authorities have succeeded in calming.
However, the Central Bank advised banks to focus on restructuring credit rather than a recognition of the full size of troubled loans.
The Central Bank Governorate, Elvira Napondina, underestimated a financial forum held in Saint Petersburg on July 2, from the risk of a regular crisis, saying that the Russian banking system is “well -financed” and has capital reserves of 8 trillion rubles (102 billion dollars).
She said: “As an supervising destination on banks, I say with responsibility that these concerns are not baseless.”
The Central Bank announced that it may be released from what is known as the total precautionary reserve capital, allowing banks to absorb losses and work with lower capital rates, and this step may reduce some pressure on the banking system, unless the size of the losses that this reserve was designed to absorb.
Officially, the percentage of low -quality loans for borrowed companies reached 4% as of the first of last April, while the debt of the unpaid consumers reached a period of 90 days or more 10.5%.
Nevertheless, senior bankers began to risk the alarm about the prospects of next year.
Difficult times
“It is already clear that it will not be easy,” said Herman Grief, CEO of Spearbank Bank, the largest lend in Russia, at the annual shareholders meeting last month.
He added: “I hope, as always, to be able to find joint plans to overcome these difficult times.”
In a bank in TP, the second largest lend in Russia, the percentage of non -individual loans in the retail portfolio reached 5% in May, to reach 377 billion rubles (4.8 billion dollars), according to the Vidomosti newspaper reported by Dmitry Bayan, First Vice -Chairman of the Bank’s Board of Directors, on the first of this month.
This indicator increased 1.2% since the beginning of the year, and Bayanov explained that the percentage of troubled loans may reach 6% -7% by 2026, while he also indicated that this percentage is less than its peak, which ranged between 8% and 10% in the 2014-2016 period.
Customers are concerned about the high interest rates, and the percentage of troubled loans increases even though the banks are currently restructuring and have abundant reserves, according to senior managers of Russian Benkin with regular importance, who have requested not to disclose their identity.
Russia has previously conducted rescue operations and other mechanisms to re -financing the troubled banks, and in 2017, the central bank spent at least a trillion rubles to save 3 large private banks, which are Octiti, Bromsiazbank, and BBUN, a step that it described as necessary to save the financial system.
The Central Bank established the banking sector unification fund in 2017 to pump capital into lending banks that suffer from troubled loans, and to rehabilitate them.