Small business will take less than before – Newspaper Kommersant No. 47 (7492) of 03/21/2023

After last year’s record increase in the loan portfolio of small and medium-sized businesses by 30% at once, in 2023 the growth rate of loans will fall two to three times, to 10-15%, ACRA experts expect. They record that against the background of the government’s struggle with the consequences of the sanctions crisis, the SME loan portfolio in 2022 grew by 2.2 trillion rubles. This happened due to an increase in new loan issuances – by 7.5% compared to 2021.

However, due to the peculiarities of attributing companies to the SME sector, relatively large construction organizations are also included in it on formal grounds. Without taking into account large loans and loans provided to developers, the growth of the SME portfolio, according to the Central Bank, is half as much – 14.6%. At the same time, the loan portfolio of wholesale trade companies (over 30% of all SME loans) decreased by 8.6% in 2022.

Despite the expansion of preferential programs for SMEs, their impact on the overall growth of the loan portfolio remains limited – the share of loans with state support in the total volume of disbursements does not exceed 15%. As practice has shown, small businesses willingly choose limits on preferential current loans, but are in no hurry to use investment lending.

As can be seen from the graph, the monthly dynamics of SME loans in 2022 was more than uneven. After a noticeable drop in March-June (down to minus 13.4% in April year-on-year), growth followed (maximum – plus 16.6% in September). However, by the end of the year (including due to an increase in the number of refusals to issue loans due to the so-called mobilization risks; see “Kommersant” dated January 26) the increase in lending has dried up. In December, the increase in loans amounted to only 1.4%, which may also indicate the saturation of demand for loans.

ACRA believes that the operating environment remains unfavorable for increasing investment lending. In addition, according to surveys, small businesses prefer to finance their investment projects on their own. At the same time, banks are not ready to reduce their requirements for borrowers, and a reduction in the cost of loans due to high inflationary expectations and stabilization of the key rate is not expected. Taking into account these and other factors, ACRA expects that the growth of the SME portfolio in 2023 will be only 10-15%.

Vadim Visloguzov