Report: Sberbank CEO: Russian banks’ losses mean systemic crisis

MOSCOW, Dec 25 (PRIME) -- Losses of the Russian banking sector are unpreceded and point to a systemic crisis, CEO of the country’s biggest lender Sberbank German Gref told channel Rossiya 24 in an interview aired Friday.

“This year, the crisis was very bad for the banking sector… Last year combined losses of our sector stood at about 900 billion rubles, this year at about 1.5 trillion rubles. These are large sums, of course. We have never seen such losses,” Gref said.

The investment shortages in the banking sector in 2014 and 2015 totaled more than 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to Gref.

Gref expects continuation of the difficult conditions but banks will be able to concentrate on bad debts because problems of a high key rate and sanctions will be less urgent.

(69.5165 rubles – U.S. $1)

End