Sberbank increases retail loans to RAS by 1% in January, reduces corporate loans by 0.9%

MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - Sberbank increased its retail loan portfolio to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) by 1% to 12.2 trillion rubles in January 2023, and reduced its corporate loan portfolio by 0.9% to 18.6 trillion rubles, excluding currency revaluation, the bank said in a statement.

Sberbank attributes the decline in the corporate loan portfolio in January to the repayment of loans by several large borrowers. The bank issued about 800 billion rubles in loans to corporate clients in January.

Mortgages and credit cards were the main drivers of the retail portfolio in January, with their balances adding more than 3% for the month, the bank notes.

Sberbank issued 415 billion rubles in retail loans to individuals in January 2023, with over 170 billion rubles being mortgages, a rise of 5.2% year-on-year The bank's share in the credit card market surged to 46.3% as on January 1, 2023, having added 2.5 percentage points over the year.

According to the bank, the quality of the loan portfolio remains stable, with the share of overdue loans totaling 2.2% at the end of January.

Funds of individuals decreased 4.7% to 17.5 trillion rubles in January, excluding currency revaluation, which was line with seasonal dynamics when compared with a decline of 3% in January 2022. The inflow of funds from retail customers rose 8.2% in December 2022, the bank recalled, and the increase in funds exceeded 3% for December 2022-January 2023, the credit institution notes.

Funds of legal entities decreased 4.5% to 8.3 trillion rubles in January, excluding currency revaluation, "owing to optimizing the cost of raising liabilities as part of the bank's liquidity management procedures," according to the statement.