The Central Bank reported on the overheating of credit in Russia

In his words, since July there has been a slowdown in the issuance of retail loans: the monthly growth rate has roughly halved, from 2% to less than 1%. At the same time, the annual growth rate of corporate loans currently exceeds 20%.

“We see that an important part of companies and industries were not very sensitive to our interest rate. Therefore, credit overheating is definitely taking place,” Danilova said.

When asked about a possible “credit bubble” in Russia, a representative of the Central Bank responded that “we are not there yet.” According to Danilova, the Central Bank is “actively taking measures in this direction”, for example, since the beginning of 2023, the regulator is tightening retail lending.

In September, the corporate banking portfolio grew by 2% (1.6 trillion rubles) to 84.2 trillion rubles, compared to 82.9 trillion rubles in August, according to the Central Bank report “On the development of the banking sector of the Russian Federation” based on the results of the first month of autumn.

At the end of October, the Central Bank raised the key interest rate by 200 basis points. p. – up to 21% annually. This is the third consecutive increase in 2024 and its highest value in history. The last high was in February 2022, when the rate rose to 20% annually.

The regulator noted that inflation is significantly higher than the July forecast of 6.5% to 7%, inflation expectations continue to grow and, therefore, further tightening of monetary policy is necessary.