Corporate lending would increase 10—15% in 2013, Transcreditbank president Alexei Krokhin said at the sixth Bank of the Year ceremony sponsored by banking portal Banki.ru.
“Average market growth will be 10% to 15%," said the Transcreditbank executive. He thinks that Russian enterprises are no longer interested in borrowed funds as they opt to pursue cautious expansion policies.
“Businesses now exercise more caution when it comes to the purchase of new units, production facilities as they understand that seeming expansion of the market share entails a number of problems,“ the banker noted. These problems, as Krokhin specified, include both control over the cost side and the search of new ways to make money. “At the moment, everybody is concerned about how to cut costs and raise profits,” said the banker.
In line with Bank of Russia data, Russian banks’ loans provided to the real sector of the economy jumped 12.7% in nominal terms in 2012, i.e. half as much as the 2011 indicator. In addition, loans issued to Russian enterprises fell 0.2% to Rub 19.93 tln in January 2013.
As the regulator forecasts, this year corporate lending should rise higher than last year. “I have a feel, can’t say this is confidence or hopes that corporate lending will grow this year at a much faster pace than in 2012," first deputy CBR chairman Alexei Simanovsky said on the sidelines of the Gaidar Forum in January.
