In March, the volume of retail loans issued exceeded RUB 1.3 trillion.

The volume of consumer loans issued in March of this year exceeded 1.3 trillion rubles, only slightly behind last year’s figure. However, the figures for the 2024 quarter have already exceeded last year’s by 0.8%. The recovery took place in all market segments, but auto loans led the way, reaching a new historical high. The population continues to spend a significant portion of their income on consumption, against the backdrop of an expected rise in prices and a long period of high interest rates on loans.

According to Frank RG express monitoring, at the end of March, the volume of retail loans issued reached RUB 1.302 trillion. This result was 26.1% higher than the figure for February of this year, but fell slightly short of last year’s figure (RUB 1.338 trillion, a decrease of 2.7%). However, in the first quarter of 2024, the volume of issuances amounted to 3.168 trillion rubles, which is already 0.8% higher than last year’s result (3.143 trillion rubles). “It turns out that the growth of real incomes of the population due to the difficult situation in the labor market leads to the fact that only part of the income goes to savings, and a significant part goes to consumption. This is primarily due to the high inflation expectations of the population,” explains Sergei Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service.

Segments are actively recovering from the decline at the beginning of the year, although in some cases they lag behind last year’s indicators. In particular, in March, banks issued cash loans worth RUB 593 billion, which is 20% higher than in February. However, in annual terms, issuances decreased by 6%. Over the past month, banks issued POS loans worth RUB 38.4 billion, which is 3% higher than in February, but 2% lower than a year ago.

Compared to February, the mortgage segment showed a sharp increase – banks issued mortgage loans worth RUB 446 billion, which is 36% more than in the previous month. Compared to March last year, the decrease was 22%. However, experts attribute the slowdown compared to last year’s figures to the unclear prospects for preferential mortgages that existed at the beginning of the year. However, the situation has now stabilized, and a number of the largest banks cancels restrictions on preferential mortgages introduced at the beginning of the year.

At the same time, the average size of a mortgage loan exceeded 4.33 million rubles. (an increase of 11% per month and 16% per year), the maximum value for the entire observation period (since December 2013). However, in the other two segments, average loan sizes remain significantly lower than last year (for cash loans – by 17%, for POS loans – by 10%).

The car lending segment remains a special place in the Russian market. Over the past month, banks issued 224 billion rubles. car loans, updating the historical record. This result is 31% higher than in February and more than twice as high as last year in March. At the same time, the average bill for a car loan in March decreased by 1% and amounted to slightly more than 1.4 million rubles. “The population is trying to take advantage of special offers from newly released Chinese brands and is trying to buy today at a lower price,” believes Sergei Grishunin. On the background increased interest rates, banks increase the terms for which issue car loans. In addition, Russians are afraid of a further increase in car prices, adds Irina Nosova, senior director of the ACRA group of financial institution ratings.

In the next few months, “the growth trend in the car lending market will continue,” Irina Nosova is sure. However, “further dynamics will depend on the ruble exchange rate (through the prices of imported cars) and on the service life of cars from Chinese manufacturers, which significantly increased their market share in 2022-2023,” says Ivan Uklein, senior director for banking ratings at Expert RA.

Polina Trifonova