Chairwoman: Clients' deposits with Russian banks rise 1.2% Jan–Oct

MOSCOW, Nov 15 (PRIME) -- Clients’ deposits with Russian banks increased 1.2% in January–October as compared with a fall of 0.8% in the same period of 2020, the central bank’s Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina said during her speech at the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, on Monday.

“If we manage to return inflation to the target, and our policy is aimed at it, we will have positive deposit rates, deposits will be profitable and will exceed inflation. And we can see that people react to it: the deposit portfolio begins to increase, especially in the autumn, it has increased 1.2%. We had an outflow of 0.8% last year,” she said.

The central bank expects the key interest rate to return to the neutral 5–6% range not earlier than in the middle of 2023, Nabiullina said, adding that the regulator can consider a further rise of the key rate from the current 7.5% at its nearest meetings.

She also said that the regulator sees risks of a rapid rise of Russians’ credit burden.

“Consumer lending continues to rise at a high rate, it increased 16% in the first nine months, which is not very good as we can see dangerous growth of the credit burden in the future,” she said.

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