Sberbank awaits faster move towards 12% key rate to balance movement of economy - CEO

MOSCOW. Feb 26 (Interfax) - The cycle begun by the Central Bank of Russia to ease monetary policy is affecting lending activity, but this is not yet providing enough momentum, and investment activity could grow somewhat with a key rate of around 12% per annum, Sberbank CEO Herman Gref said during a conference call with analysts.

"Overall, we are happy with our work last year. External conditions were perhaps not the most favorable - with very high real rates and the impact of external restrictions, economic growth slowed down substantially, by almost 80%, from 4.9% in 2024 to 1% in 2025. The share of industries which declined last year grew a lot, and this also affected systemic industries such as mining and trade. A total of around 45% industries were in decline. Growth was maintained in manufacturing and construction," Gref said.

He said that low prices on Russian goods exports and a very strong ruble had put pressure on the company's revenue.

"We see that the first cycle of cuts [to the key rate] is already being reflected in lending activity, but this is as yet insufficient as a driving force. The key parameter which can be used to make judgements on potential growth in future periods is investment trends. Investments have been declining for three quarters in a row. In our view, further steps to ease monetary policy could allow this slowing to be stopped. We have been trying to understand which rate could cause the trend to change somewhat from decline towards a slight growth in investment activity. It feels to us that this rate could be around 12% per annum. We therefore await a faster transition to this rate in order to balance out the movement of the economy," Gref said.