Sberbank discloses the amount of the return of bad debts – Kommersant

The first deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank, Alexander Vedyakhin, disclosed the amount of the refund in the settlement of debt disputes. He announced this today, July 7, speaking at a session of the Financial Congress of the Bank of Russia. “There are three ways out of this situation. The first – the most unfavorable – bankruptcy. We have recovery here of about 30%,” said the top manager of the bank. The second way out is restructuring. The bank carries out 25,000 restructurings monthly, while the return is 70-75% of the debt.

The third option is mediation. In April 2023, a draft standard was developed for protecting the rights and interests of individual borrowers in the settlement of debts under loan agreements concluded for purposes not related to business activities. The standard deals with the settlement of issues with consumer loans and mortgages, and suggests, among other things, that in a situation where a person has several creditors, the operator (one of the creditors of this person) can handle the complex debt settlement.

According to Mr. Vedyakhin, the return on mediation is 90%. And, according to him, “it is a much healthier tool” that will allow banks “to manage their financial results much better and provide better returns.” According to the top manager, the potential for debt settlement in this way for the entire market is about 50 thousand transactions per year. However, according to the first deputy chairman of the board of Sovcombank Sergey Khotimsky, there are much more such cases. “We have millions of problem borrowers, and we really need procedures that work not for tens of thousands, but for millions, that is, they must be automated.”

At the same time, according to Mr. Khotimsky, for unsecured loans on large checks, the real return rate can be only 4-5%. At the same time, he draws attention to the fact that debtors often pay more money to “certain legal companies” than to banks. According to him, the problem of these so-called borrowers in the banking market “is growing very seriously.” Debtors are usually referred to as persons who pretend to be lawyers and offer to solve problems with creditors for a fee, but can mislead financial consumers.

Olga Sherunkova