Household deposits continue to grow in September

In the first nine months of 2019, the Russian banking sector’s assets were up 3.2%, according to data published in the report ‘Review of the Banking Sector of the Russian Federation in January-September 2019’.

The retail segment made a considerable contribution to growth in the total loan portfolio this year. Having said this, the growth rate of loans to individuals was down due to several factors including seasonality.

The continued demand of non-financial organisations for rouble loans with concurrently declining foreign exchange loans (in dollar terms) emerged as the key reason behind overall moderate corporate lending data.

This year, household deposits have been showing fairly strong growth: between January and September, they grew almost threefold compared to the same period in 2018.

For the January to September 2019 period, the banking sector reported net profits of 1.5 trillion rubles (vs 1.1 trillion rubles in the corresponding period in 2018). This year-on-year growth of the financial result is largely technical in nature and comes as the result of credit institutions making adjustments in compliance with IFRS 9.