MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. The net profit of Sberbank in April - June 2023 under IFRS amounted to 380.3 bln rubles ($4.02 bln), the bank said on Thursday.

In the first half of 2023, Sber showed strong results, ensuring the growth of net profit up to 737.5 bln rubles ($7.81 bln) and return on equity at the level of 25.5%, the bank said. Meanwhile, the net profit of Sberbank for 2022 amounted to 270.5 bln rubles ($2.86 bln).

The operating expenses of the group amounted to 216.3 bln rubles ($2.29 bln) in April - June and in the first half of 2023 operating expenses reached 398.2 bln rubles ($4.22 bln)

During a conference call for investors and analysts, Taras Skvortsov, the bank's Financial Director, stated that Sberbank expects net profit in 2023 to be at least equivalent to the record performance of 2021. "The second quarter demonstrated that our ambitious forecast is attainable. We are on track to exceed the record net profit levels achieved in 2021, which was the best year for us," he said.

Sberbank has improved its forecast for Russian GDP growth in 2023 from 1% to around 1.8%, the bank said. At the same time, Sberbank analysts retained their forecast for inflation in Russia for the current year in the range of 5-6%.

In turn, Sberbank itself also plans to grow slightly faster than the market, Skvortsov added.