UPDATE: Fitch: Russia’s corporate lending to grow 5% in 2016

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MOSCOW, Sep 14 (PRIME) -- International rating agency Fitch expects that corporate lending in Russia will grow by 5% in 2016 and retail loans will increase within 3%, the agency’s analyst Anton Lopatin said at a conference on Wednesday.

“In the first half of the year corporate lending adjusted for currency revaluation increased by 2%. Reasons of this growth – rates have decreased, correspondingly, corporate borrowers show interest in loans, moreover, banks that received OFZ bonds are obliged to boost lending by 1% to certain sectors,” he said.

Corporate and retail deposits with banks grew around 4% in the first half of the year. Fitch expects the figure to increase 10% in 2016.

Fitch projects the main profit of the Russian banking sector at around 300 billion rubles in 2016.

Banks will repay the main debt to the central bank within six to 12 months, Fitch analysts also said. As of the end of June, the debt stood at 1.4 trillion rubles.

Net deposits with the central bank will grow to 2 trillion rubles by the end of the year, Fitch also said.

The government spent around 3.3 trillion rubles, or around 4% of 2015 gross domestic product (GDP), to support and clean up the banking sector in 2013–2015, Fitch also said.

“Around half of this sum was spent on recapitalization of operating banks, and the second half on bailouts of bankrupt banks and payments to their depositors,” the agency said.

(64.8102 rubles – U.S. $1)

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