Russian banks lost 1.5 trillion roubles in first half, central bank tells RBC

RUSSIA’S banks lost a combined 1.5 trillion roubles (S$34.8 billion) in the first 6 months of 2022, a top official at Russia’s central bank said on Friday (Sep 2) in an interview with the RBC business daily.

It is the first time the regulator has disclosed banking sector earnings since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February.

Around 2/3 of banks’ losses related to foreign currency operations, said Dmitry Tulin, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank.

Tulin said there was a “more than 50 per cent chance” that losses for the full-year would not exceed the 1.5 trillion rouble figure from the first half.

The losses were concentrated among the largest banks, Tulin said. Loss-making institutions recorded a combined 1.9 trillion rouble (US$31.60 billion) loss, compared to profitable lenders that earned a combined 400 billion roubles (US$6.65 billion).

The central bank does not expect a repeat of the 2014-17 banking crisis, when the regulator had to bail out several lenders and stripped banking licences from hundreds of poorly capitalised banks, Tulin said. REUTERS