The Central Bank is waiting for a modest growth of retail lending in 2025
The Central Bank expects a significant slowdown in the growth of retail loan portfolios in all segments, and in some it does not exclude reduction. In large banks, they generally agree that the trend indicated by the regulator is relevant. Bankers have certain hopes on car loans and credit cards.
On Thursday, February 27, the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina announced forecasts for the growth of retail lending in 2025. According to them, the growth of the mortgage portfolio in 2025 will be “modest” 5%. At the same time, the Central Bank wants to eliminate the ability to “screw the schemes” in a preferential mortgage, “which only discredit the idea of state support,” she said. The head of the Central Bank and toughening in the car loan segment, where the regulator sees a large number of imposed services imposed. The dynamics of the Consumer loans portfolio in 2025 will be from -1% to +4%:
“Tough monetary conditions will lead to a reduction in demand, and our measures against the cast of citizens are further reducing the issuance of risky loans.”
The retail lending market this year will “hibernate” and its reduction will be maximum in recent years, confident in VTB. “Banks will be given priority attention to the quality of the loan portfolio, the growth of which will also slow down significantly,” they note there. “If in 2024 its volume increased by 13%, almost 39.5 trillion rubles, then in 2025 – by no more than 5%, to about 41.4 trillion rubles.”
However, not all bankers are so pessimistic in forecasts. So, in Alfa-Bank, it is expected that the growth of a mortgage portfolio in 2025 will be about 9%. “The driver will be state programs, mainly the“ family mortgage ”, we expect that there will be about 55% of the issuance of 2025,” said there. It is precisely the preferential mortgage will continue to prevail in the portfolio, the director of the Department of Mortgage lending to the ICD Alexei Prosvirin agrees. It is important to note that the dynamics of the mortgage portfolio will be partially maintained by the factor of low repayment of the early repayment, since in the current conditions most of the borrowers can be unprofitable to extinguish the mortgage, the director of the group of financial institutions of the NKR Egor Lopatin.
“Thanks to the restoration and stabilization of the sales market of cars, car loans can maintain flagship positions among all retail segments,” said Mikhail Polukhin, director of the group of ratings of financial institutions of ARKU. The car loan segment will probably show moderate growth, but its dynamics will depend on the availability of cars, the price level of them and lending conditions, is warned by the President of Invoskafa Gennady Fofanov.
13 percent
compiled an increase in the retail portfolio of Russian banks according to the results of 2024
“The segment of credit cards also expects growth-the presence of graris periods against the background of high rates remains an indisputable advantage of this product,” said Dmitry Gritsevich, manager for the analysis of the banking and financial markets of PSB. In POS-crediting, growth rates can be 20–25% if by the end of the year there is a softening of the DCP and a rate of rate to 15-16% per annum, according to the head of the analytical department of the RIKO-TRAST IK, candidate of economic sciences Oleg Abel. According to the managing director of the “expert RA” Yuri Belikova, the balance of debt on consumer loans as a whole in a year, most likely, will show positive dynamics, since the demand for inappropriate borrowing remains at a high level against the background of increased inflation.
According to VTB, sales of loans this year will be reduced by 30%. An increase in the total loan portfolio of the population may slow down to 7% in 2025, said Anna Zemlyanova, chief analyst at the Socialist Republic of Commerbank. Sberbank expects that the growth of the retail portfolio will not exceed 5%.
In general, in 2025, retail lending will move towards the « risk -free » and technological segments (POS, Auto, Mortgage).
Preferential programs will remain a key driver for large loans, while cash loans and credit cards will slow down due to regulatory and market restrictions, the Unicon partner Denis Taradov notes.
But according to the chief economist of the Institute of Growth Economics named after P. A. Stolypin Boris Kopeikin, the expectations of the Central Bank of growth in the part of the mortgage portfolio and a possible decline in consumer lending by only 1% by the results of the year seem excessively optimistic.
