Without subsidies from developers, the average monthly issuance of preferential mortgages would have decreased by 82%, Sberbank calculated. What’s more, even if subsidies are maintained, the reduction in emissions in the first half of 2024 could be almost 40%. This was stated by the CEO of the Domklik division of Sberbank, Artem Gerasimovich.
At the end of last year, the FAS began to receive complaints against large Russian banks for the introduction of a commission for promoters. Therefore, the lender provides a home purchase loan only to banking partners (who pay a commission). Credit organizations began to use this practice after the mechanism for issuing preferential mortgages was tightened.
As Gerasimovich noted, without subsidies the average monthly disbursements could have decreased from 495 billion rubles in the second half of last year to 87 billion rubles in the first half of this year. If subsidies are maintained, the drop will also not be avoidable, but will amount to 37%, that is, 313 billion rubles.
“A bank is an economic entity whose objective is profit; We must maintain a certain rate of profitability and work to obtain profits. Therefore, we do not consider unprofitable issues that have a negative profitability for us,” said Gerasimovich, quoted by Forbes.
He added that under current conditions the company sees two options: prepare for an 80% drop in the state support market or use “some type of compensation instrument.”
A similar opinion was expressed the day before by the vice-chairman of the VTB board of directors, Georgy Gorshkov. According to him, since the end of December the bank’s profitability for all government programs has become negative.
The bank considers that in this situation it is necessary to choose between agreements with accredited developers or reject preferential mortgages as such.
Gerasimovich, for his part, reported that banks’ margins when issuing preferential mortgages decreased by 1.8 percentage points: from 0.6% at the beginning of last year to -1.2% at the end.
The Central Bank previously criticized the new scheme for banks to work with developers. The regulator considers that charging a commission and offering a loan by the client to purchase real estate only from banking partners poses risks to competition principles.
Gerasimovich points out that thanks to the new approach the margin on preferential mortgages in January will increase to 1.2%.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
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