Central Bank of Russia has no plans to date to raise countercyclical buffer - deputy department director

MOSCOW. Feb 3 (Interfax) - The Central Bank of Russia does not currently plan to raise the countercyclical buffer further, Yevgeny Rumyantsev, Deputy Director of the Central Bank's Financial Stability Department, said.

"We are not currently considering raising it, given that we have other sectoral buffers in place. Specifically, the sectoral buffer was increased for lending to large companies with high debt burdens," Rumyantsev said on Tuesday at a press conference.

Rumyantsev recalled that the Central Bank last week decided to maintain the countercyclical buffer at 0.5%, which has been in effect since July 1, 2025.

The regulator at the time also decided to raise the risk-weighted premium for the rise in credit exposures to large companies with increased debt burdens from 40% to 100%, effective as of March 1, 2026.

The countercyclical buffer accumulates during accelerated growth in lending and is tapped during a crisis. Utilizing the buffer is intended to improve the banking sector's resilience to possible shocks and limit the impact of shocks on lending to the economy.

The Central Bank previously implemented a countercyclical buffer of 0.25% on February 1, 2025, amid ongoing growth in corporate lending, and raised it to 0.5% as of July 1. The regulator said that this should allow banks to accumulate a capital buffer of 800 billion rubles.

The Central Bank assumes that the countercyclical buffer should be 1% of risk-weighted assets in the long term.