Credit impasse

Despite the impulsion of the government and the Central Bank, the Russian banking system is in no hurry to help the stagnant real sector. During the first half of 2010, loans to non-financial enterprises increased by only 4%, and these miserable interest in reality (due to rising prices) can be safely equated to zero. At the same time, the passivity of commercial banks looks a little strange, taking into account the fact that the price of oil, our main indicator, has long been at a fairly high level, and from this side, that is, from the tributary of foreign currency revenue, the Russian economy does not threaten nothing. Nevertheless, banks do almost nothing to try to restore economic growth by expanding lending, and prefer to accumulate reserves, and not put them into circulation.

Does the narrowness of its resource base interfere with the expansion of the activity of the banking system? On the one hand, part of the banking resources is growing a pace that is a leading growth rate of credit investments. So, in six months, the remains of funds in the accounts of customers - legal entities grew by 11%, and deposits of individuals - even by 13%. But at the same time, the deposits of legal entities remain at the same level, and sometimes even decrease. As a result, the client funds as a whole in six months have grown by only 8%, which, of course, is completely not enough to disperse the stagnant Russian economy, even if they are entirely allowed to let them in working capital lending. But banks do not even do this, holding lending at an extremely low level.

On the other hand, part of their free resources can not be used to lend the real sector, as they are forced to repay the stabilization loans received during the crisis from the Central Bank. Recall that at the beginning of 2009, at the height of the crisis, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation issued 3.3 trillion loans to commercial banks. rub., And now this debt has decreased by 6 times, to 500 billion rubles. That is, of course, it is pleasant that Russian banks are so disciplined and solvent, but at the same time it is unpleasant that the Central Bank compresses their resource base, and at the most inappropriate moment for this.

In general, the resource base of banks is experiencing strong fluctuations, but that is not all. As we had to write earlier, many Russian banks in pre -crisis times actively re -have re -have re -have re -have re -have been re -raised in world money and financial markets. This helped them expand the resource base, emancipating from the local clientele. And many banks hoped that they would be re -border for them forever. But then the crisis struck, and foreign creditors refused to provide new loans, and in addition, they demanded to extinguish the old ones. And now, instead of expanding the lending of the Russian economy, Russian banks are forced to return old loans to non-resident banks, planting their clientele on a hungry ration.

However, bank customers are also largely to blame for the current situation. Without the opportunity (or not wanting), the loans received from commercial banks on time, they themselves thus worsen the terms of lending. This deterioration of lending conditions was expressed, firstly, in increasing the requirements for providing loans, which not all customers are able to fulfill; And secondly, which is much worse, banks are forced to create and keep reserves on their balance sheet for possible losses under previously issued loans, for which the maturity of the repayment were violated. The creation of these reserves is very burdensome for banks - if at the beginning of July 2008 these reserves amounted to only 890 billion rubles, now, in two years, they amount to 2.2 trillion. rub.

At the same time, unfortunately, the creation of reserves for possible losses is not limited. Banks are well aware that they are in a situation of unstable balance, and therefore hold large reserves in cash. Banks understand that the influx of deposits at any time can be replaced by an outflow that non -return of loans to their own borrowers does not cancel the repayment of the raised funds, that the dollar can change strongly and that some customers cannot refuse to issue new loans. In order to amortize the action of these factors, banks hold cash reserves, and they are constantly increasing. If at the beginning of the year there are cash reserves (which includes investments of commercial banks in deposits and bonds of the Central Bank) amounted to 790 billion rubles, then at the beginning of July - 1.6 trillion. rub. And this, by the way, is 12% of all loans issued to non -financial companies.

Thus, there are many obstacles in the way to expand the lending of the real sector by commercial banks, and some of them are objectively determined, and some are man -made. Therefore, most likely, we are unlikely to receive the expansion of lending in the near future. And in this regard, you need to pay attention to the slightly strange behavior of the Central Bank. On the one hand, it reduces the refinancing of the banking system, reducing the volume of loans provided to banks. On the other hand, the Central Bank constantly exerts pressure on banks in order to reduce interest rates for both placement and raising funds. The Central Bank, apparently, hopes that in this way loans for borrowers will become cheaper, they will begin to occupy more, and this will be able to stir up our economy. However, there can be another effect from lowering bets - the volume of credit investments will not increase, since banks will not want to take the risks of borrowers, but there can be a decrease in the resource base, and then there will be nothing to issue loans to banks.