Sberbank sees rise in consumer lending after April rate cut - Gref
MOSCOW. April 10 (Interfax) - Sberbank has seen a rise in consumer lending since the bank cut its rates in April, Sberbank CEO German Gref said at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We lowered our consumer loan rates on April 1 by between 2 and 3 percentage points, and we've seen an increase of about 20%. The number of consumer loan applications has increased since April 1. This shows that demand for consumer lending is growing gradually. As a whole, this is just the first sign for now, but there are fairly positive signs of revival," Gref said.
He also said that the first two months of the year were rather difficult for the company, as the number of consumer loan requests plummeted more than 75%, while mortgage loan applications were down more than 50%.
The program for subsidizing mortgages on the primary market is now having a positive impact on the market, Gref said. "We are currently giving out mortgages for new construction projects at 11.9% [in the subsidized mortgage program]. And we saw demand for mortgages recover in the first two week - slightly less than a year before. In general, this is not a bad result. For an ordinary mortgage and secondary housing, the rate is around 14%, and our portfolio is also growing decently. Last year our portfolio grew 44%, while we are sad to say that today that we make up 53% of the market. We account for around 70% of new issues," Gref added.
Sberbank previously said that it was lowering rates on consumer loans by 1-2 percentage points starting March 30.
