The Bank of Russia has announced that it will maintain the current macroprudential limits (MPLs) on unsecured consumer loans and microloans for the second quarter of 2025. These parameters remain unchanged from those set in the first quarter of 2025.
The decision was made after considering the expansion of high-risk unsecured consumer loans by banks during the first three quarters of 2024. To address this, the Bank of Russia had previously tightened its macroprudential policy by increasing risk-weight add-ons in July and September 2024 and reducing loan limits for highly indebted borrowers. This led to an improvement in lending structure, with a decrease in new unsecured consumer loans with debt service-to-income (DSTI) ratios over 50%, dropping from 60% in Q2 2023 to 26% in Q4 2024. Additionally, banks have accumulated a ₽827 billion macroprudential buffer on consumer loans, equating to 6.5% of their consumer loan portfolio, which can be used to cover potential losses.
Due to these measures and worsened debt servicing on earlier issued loans, banks have increased their requirements for new borrowers. Consequently, approval rates decreased significantly: from 29% in Q3 2023 to 17% in Q4 2024 for cash loans and from 29% to 22% for credit cards. The most notable decline occurred in Q4 2024.
With stricter borrower criteria imposed by banks, growth in unsecured consumer loans halted, resulting in a decrease of outstanding loans by 0.3% in January 2025 and by 1.9% in December 2024.
In contrast, microfinance organizations (MFOs) saw continued growth in outstanding loan amounts—up by +14% in Q4 compared to +10% in Q3 of 2024—though still accounting for less than four percent of all outstanding consumer loans.
The Bank of Russia has decided to retain existing MPL parameters for Q2 due to banks independently tightening borrower criteria and limiting high-risk loan provisions, alongside the non-threatening increase in MFO loan volumes regarding financial stability.
Future MPL values for Q3 will be determined by the Bank based on credit quality changes, household debt burdens, and lending standards as assessed by April 2025.
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