ARRA experts predicted the growth of capital of Russian banks in 2025

Banks this year will be forced to pay more attention to the sufficiency of their own capital than to the development of their credit business. According to analysts, by the end of 2025, the requirements for the adequacy of systemically significant banks will significantly tighten and so far in most of them this indicator is at the border of the minimum value. According to experts, this may become one of the factors in the slowdown in the lending market.

According to the study of ARKRA “Key factors for the capitalization of Russian banks in 2024–2025”, in 2025, banks will be forced to increase capital. “Against the backdrop of a decrease in the reserve of capital sufficiency in a number of industry leaders relative to regulatory minimums, the macroprudent and monetary policy carried out by the Bank of Russia will stimulate banks to switch to their own funds and strengthen financial stability in the next 12 months,” the document says.

The ACRU notes that the average value of the sufficiency of equity (H1.0) of all systematically significant credit organizations (SZKO) as of April 1 more than 1 percentage point (paragraphs) exceeded the minimum allowable value without taking into account the allowances (8%).

At the same time, to maintain the sufficiency of capital for the SZKO to the crisis, a premium of 1 p., For banks with a universal license – 2.5 p. In 2022, the Bank of Russia allowed the temporarily not observed these allowances, but starting from 2024 for five years until 2028, they must be restored. As a result, by the end of this year, the SZKO should add 0.5 per p. To the minimum bar N1.0 for the system significance and 1 p. To maintain the sufficiency of capital. In addition, from July 1, 0.5 points will be added in the form of an anticyclical allowance, as a result, by the end of 2025, the minimum standard for the adequacy of systematically significant banks should be at least 10%.

At the same time, as the head of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina noted at an annual meeting with bankers at the end of February, the cost of rapid credit growth of the last two years was that the banks largely used capital and liquidity reserves, which they had by the beginning of 2022 and which were supported by regulatory bones. So, in 2024, the retail loan portfolio grew by 9.7%, corporate – by 17.9%.

At the same time, according to the ACRA study, at present, the value of the capacity of the capacity of the banking group (H20.0) of six out of ten SZKOs that reveal the value of this indicator is in the range of 9–11%, despite the fact that the minimum acceptable value of the standard at the end of the year should be 10%. As a result, the agency predicts a reduction in the growth rate of the loan portfolio in 2025 to 10%, which will support the capitalization of the banking industry. “The credit activity of the banks remained high in 2024, despite the constructing measures of the Bank of Russia, which led to the continued noticeable growth of assets suspended at risk and led to capital pressure,” says Suren Asaturov, the director of the group of financial institutions of the financial institutions.

However, experts believe that banks do not have to resort to emergency measures to increase capital in order to support their share in the lending market. Yuri Belikov, managing director of the expert RA rating agency, notes that in 2025 the not those monetary conditions and the not such creditworthiness of borrowers, taking into account their average legality in order to actively fight for the place in the lending market. According to Mr. Belikov, the previous rates of capital loading in the current conditions are impossible, so this is not even a matter of some rigid self-restraint. “Given this, the overwhelming majority of the largest banks will not need direct injections into capital to fulfill regulatory requirements even taking into account toughened allowances,” the expert said.

Maxim Builov