Russian banks not likely to hike rates soon - deputy RSHB chief
MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax) - Russian banks will not anytime soon be raising deposit and credit rates, and there will be no large-scale rate increase ahead of the elections, Kirill Levin, deputy chief at agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank , told reporters on Tuesday.
"I would doubt there will be such a massive campaign to raise rates. It is quite complicated to raise all rates on everyone at one time. That, as a rule, is if there is a crisis," Levin said in comments on the upcoming elections.
Levin offered the view that at this point rates are unlikely to go up as long as there is sufficient liquidity in the global and Russian economies.
German Gref, the president and chairman at Sberbank of Russia , said in mid-June that the lending organization saw it as a likelihood that credit and deposit rates will go up in the fall. He said it could happen in the event liquidity decreases and an inflationary backdrop persists.
Levin, who had earlier worked at Sberbank, said he has doubts about the possibility Russia's biggest bank would increase its interest rates.
"I would not refer to what German Oskarovich [Gref] said in his speeches. I don't think it will really happen if the market situation is not sufficient," he said.
If Sberbank does decide to hike rates, then other market operators will look to follow its lead, Levin said. "Definitely, if Sberbank does seriously increase its requirements of borrowers and increase rates, then all of us - as participants in this market - will not remain on the sidelines," he said.
