The head of VTB at a meeting with Putin warned about a likely decrease in bank income

The head of VTB Bank, Andrei Kostin, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested that in 2024 the growth of bank revenues will decrease. He called 2023 a successful year both for VTB and for the entire banking sector of Russia, it was said in a message on website Kremlin.

“Next year, we still expect a decline in the growth of the banking sector and our income, because the Central Bank has taken anti-inflationary measures: raising the rate, limiting lending, including consumer lending,” said the head of VTB.

Andrei Kostin called these temporary measures. The Central Bank will most likely adjust its policy and make it less stringent, he added. Vladimir Putin responded by saying that “you need to be very careful with softness.”

Andrei Kostin characterized the work on state defense orders at the United Shipbuilding Company (USC) as “satisfactory.” According to him, there are shortcomings “both in the work of the corporation, and in the work of its subcontractors, and in the mechanism of relations with the Ministry of Defense.” According to him, the company will cope with the execution of the order – the parties “are working, they have created a road map.”

The order for the construction of civil ships, as Mr. Kostin said, opens up “great prospects.” USC is not able to fully implement it due to “lack of capacity” and “lack of technology,” he added.

October 9 Vladimir Putin signed decree on the transfer of 100% of USC shares to the management of VTB. According to Kommersant, the decision was caused by the failure of the USC rehabilitation program, which began in 2020.

USC unites more than 50 design bureaus, shipbuilding, ship repair and engineering plants, research centers and enterprises in 15 regions of the Russian Federation. USC’s revenue for 2022, according to the company, amounted to 350 billion rubles.

Read more in the Kommersant article. “Ships came into our banks”.

Petr Buzlaev