Almost 70 thousand small companies applied to banks for restructuring of loans

In the first months of 2025, the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector has been experiencing more problems with debt repayment. From January to March, 68.6 thousand companies applied for restructuring of loans - for comparison, for the same period last year they were half as many - 35.2 thousand, according to the Central Bank's newsletter.

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Most applications for restructuring come from companies in the service sector - catering, retail, tourism, partly construction and logistics, said the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation (CCI) Sergei Katyrin. According to him, these industries are more sensitive to fluctuations in demand, they have a high dependence on working capital.

In 2023 there were low interest rates on loans and high business activity. Because of this, few applications for debt restructuring were filed in 2024, said Sergei Tinkov, associate professor of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Logistics at Plekhanov Russian Economic University. However, in the same year the situation changed - consumer demand decreased in many sectors of SMEs, so their turnovers either stabilized or decreased. In addition, loan rates increased, which led to a surge in applications in 2025.

But the Central Bank when making a decision on the key rate will rather pay attention to price growth than to the situation with the repayment of debts by companies, believes the analyst of FG Finam Igor Dodonov. The expert explained that in the weekly data inflation in Russia is gradually slowing down - for example, on May 19, it amounted to 9.9%, but inflation expectations have increased this month.

Read more in the exclusive material of "Izvestia":

Percentage ratio: every tenth small company with loans has problems with their repayment