Russian banks boost retail loans 47% by quantity, 33% by volume in Jan - UCB
MOSCOW. Feb 24 (Interfax) - Russian banks issued 1.4 million new loans to individuals in January 2016, up 47% from 935,000 in the same month last year, United Credit Bureau (UCB), one of Russia's three biggest credit bureaus, said in a review.
The combined volume of these loans rose 33% to 134.6 billion rubles in January this year, from 101.4 billion rubles a year previously, UCB, which is owned by Sberbank , Experian and the Interfax Group, said.
Compared with December 2015, the number of new loans decreased 46% and their volume by 55%, due to seasonal factors.
Three segments of retail lending showed growth in terms of both quantity and volume in January 2016 compared with January 2015: the number of new credit cards rose 73% to 456,000, cash loans grew 40% in number to 887,000 and car loans grew 48% to 10,000. In volume, loans increased by 29% to 14.6 billion rubles, 104% to 82.3 billion rubles and 46% to 4.7 billion rubles, respectively.
But the home mortgage loan segment, which had earlier been stable, fell 33% in both cases to 19,000 loans and 29.7 billion rubles.
The UCB, set up in 2004, currently has a database of 197.7 million credit histories. Credit reports can be obtained from the bureau itself sand via the SPARK Interfax database.
