Car loans was the only segment within retail loans that posted growth in September, increasing by 12% month on month and by 75% year on year in 9M24, Renaissance Capital wrote citing the data by Frank RG.

Similar to car sales dynamics in the past months, car loans jumped in anticipation of the increase in the recycling fee and the expected increase in prices.

Overall retail loan issuance declined by 9.3% m/m and 37.6% y/y in September, down 10% y/y in 9M24. Mortgage loans decreased by 1.1% m/m and 62.1% y/y, cash loans by 23.2% m/m and 16.1% y/y, POS loans by 6.3% m/m and 13.3% y/y. In quantitative terms, the declines were 5.1%, 22.3% and 6.3% m/m respectively. 

This continues the trend of retail lending cooling off under pressure from the Central Bank of Russia, previously reported by bne IntelliNews.

“The decline in retail loan issuance for the third month in a row is due to the tightening of conditions for granting favourable mortgage loans, tighter macro-prudential regulation, as well as tighter monetary policy, and should lead to an additional decline in the growth rate of the banking sector's loan portfolio,” Renaissance Capital commented. 

Nevertheless, the Central Bank of Russia's operational estimates on the dynamics of monetary aggregates point to the preservation of high growth rates of M2 in September (+1.8% for the second month in a row), which may be associated with the preservation of high growth rates of corporate lending, and hence the overall credit impulse, the analysts note.