Car lending up 70% in a year

Since the beginning of the year, banks have issued 1.3 million car loans worth Br1.85 trillion, which is 69% more than in the same period of 2023, as follows from the data of the UCB (Izvestia has the study). From January to November last year, almost 760 thousand auto loans for Br1.09 trillion were issued.

Expensive mileage: used car loans take a year longer to pay off than new ones

The timing difference has reached an all-time high

From January to September 2024, this segment grew faster than other types of lending, said Alexei Volkov, marketing director of the National Bureau of Credit Histories (NBKI). But in the last two months, the issuance of loans for cars began to slow down. If in September the volume of such loans amounted to 226 billion rubles, in November it fell to 83 billion rubles, said the UCB.

The trend is confirmed in banks. VTB notes a two-fold increase in the issuance of car loans in January-November compared to 2023, in OTP Bank they increased by 3.8 times, and in "Rosbank Auto" - by 40%. At the same time, representatives of all organizations reported a noticeable "cooling" of demand in recent months.

But still car loans may turn out to be the only one of the largest retail segments, which will show growth at the end of the year, believes economist Andrei Barkhota. The rapid growth of the car loan market in 2024 is due to the increased activity of customers in the first half of the year, said the press service of VTB. At this time, the supply of new cars from dealers increased due to the growth of domestic production and supplies from China - as a result, Russians realized the pent-up demand, said Vitaly Kostyukevich, director of the retail products department of Absolut Bank.

Consumers decided not to postpone the purchase of a car, because everyone expected an increase in the key rate (since the beginning of the year it has already increased by 5 p.p., up to 21%), explained the representative of "Rosbank Auto" Vyacheslav Yakubchik. In addition, Russians feared the acceleration of car prices due to the increase in the utilization fee.

The utilization fee is paid by importers for each car produced or imported into the Russian Federation. The collected funds are directed to domestic manufacturers in the form of subsidies, the amount of which is approximately equal to the levy. Since October 1, the index has increased by 70-85% at once, depending on the parameters of the car, for example, engine volume. From 2025, it will be indexed annually by 10-20%.

Read more in the exclusive material "Izvestia":

Strengthening the ruble: car loan disbursements grew by 70% over the year