MOSCOW, January 9. /TASS/. Russian banks may earn up to 1.5 trillion rubles ($20.7 bln) in 2023, which is a 1.5-fold increase compared with the record profit of 2021, according to a note on the country’s banking sector posted on the PSB Analytics Telegram channel on Sunday.

"After the challenging 2022 banks will be able to earn 1.2-1.5 trillion rubles this year, which is more than half of the record profit of 2021 (2.4 trillion rubles)," the note said.

The large-scale transformation of the economy will support the demand for loans, analysts suggest. Meanwhile, they expect the portfolio of corporate loans in rubles to grow by 15%, including those of SMEs - by 20%. That said, the share of corporate loans in foreign currency is projected to go down to 14-15% compared with 16% in 2022 and 24% in 2021.