The Central Bank may be required to coordinate decisions on mortgage issuance limits with the Ministry of Construction

The State Duma Committee on the Financial Market approved amendments that will oblige the Bank of Russia to coordinate decisions on macroprudential limits for issuing mortgages with the Ministry of Construction. This is reported by Interfax with reference to a source familiar with the text of the amendments to the bill.

Today, March 13, the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market considered for the second reading amendments to bill on the right of the Bank of Russia to limit the issuance of mortgage loans to banks. The document will be considered at a plenary meeting of the State Duma on March 19.

According to an Interfax source, the deputies also approved an amendment to the bill, according to which the decision of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia on the establishment of macroprudential limits will be made in agreement with the federal executive body responsible for state policy and legal regulation in the construction sector, architecture, urban planning and housing and communal services. It is expected that the regulator will receive new powers from July 1, 2024.

In early March, Director of the Financial Stability Department of the Central Bank Evgeny Rumyantsev told about the regulator’s plans to introduce four macroprudential limits on mortgage issuance, but only two of them will be used. The other two limits, according to Mr. Rumyantsev, will be reserve ones.

The first macroprudential limit will concern limits on finished housing, and the second – on housing under construction secured by equity participation agreements. Two other limits, which Evgeny Rumyantsev called reserve ones, relate to loans for individual housing construction and other consumer loans secured by housing.

Read more about the bill, which will allow the Central Bank to limit the issuance of mortgages to banks, in the Kommersant FM article. “The mortgage will fit into the framework”.

Milena Kostereva