Experts predict growth of credit rates in the first quarter of 2025
The average approved rate on cash loans to individuals in 2024 has increased significantly compared to 2023 - 22.4% vs. 14.9% respectively, as reported to "Izvestia" in the press service of the marketplace Finuservices (service of Mosbirzhi). According to the majority of experts interviewed by Izvestia, borrowed funds for the population will become more expensive this year as well.
Mikhail Polukhin, Director of the Financial Institutions Rating Group of ACRA, predicts that in 2025, interest rates on loans will show a noticeable increase during the first quarter. He specified that an important role here is played by the regulator's abolition of the restriction on the full cost of credit (TCC) from January 1 to March 31. The expert is sure that banks will use this moratorium to compensate for the yield on loans after last year.
In 2024, against the backdrop of the key rate hike, banks increased the promised yield on deposits to attract funds from the population, while in the cost of credit were limited by the relatively low maximum possible TCOP, which the regulator set under a more lenient DCP. Therefore, the gap in the cost of attracted (deposits) and placed (loans) funds was growing. The moratorium on the PSC will untie their hands. And the importance of the key in this process will change.
"We can assume that the growth of rates on consumer loans is currently less dependent on the movements of the key rate, that is, at least at the end of the current quarter, it will be observed even in the case of softening of the DCP," - Mikhail Polukhin.
Ilya Zharsky, managing partner of the Veta Expert Group, has a similar position. He suggested that banks will want to insure themselves and put into the rates the risk of default on the part of borrowers who took money at high interest rates in 2024. Indeed, according to the Central Bank, last year the growth of problem loans amounted to 0.5 p.p. (from 4.1% to 4.6% of the portfolio). In addition, the expert has no doubt that the rates will also be affected by macroeconomic factors, including geopolitical tensions and possible new sanctions restrictions, which is reflected in their interest rate policy.
Read more in Izvestia's exclusive piece:
Not more, but less: Russians have tempered their credit appetites
