MOSCOW, March 26. /TASS/. The portfolio of corporate loans of Russian banks grew with moderate rates in February as it rose by 0.6% to 74.6 trillion rubles ($807 bln). Consumer lending preliminarily grew by 0.9% last month to 13.9 trillion rubles ($150 bln), according to files released by the Bank of Russia.

"In February growth (of corporate lending - TASS) amounted to moderate 0.6% after near-zero dynamics in January (-0.01%). This is notably lower than growth both in February 2023 and the 2023 average (+1.5%) and it is within our outlook (6-11% for year and 0.5-0.9% on average for month)," according to files. "More than half of growth was ensured by foreign currency loans (+273 bln rubles, +2.3%) extended mainly in yuan to exporting companies in the oil and gas and mining sectors. The demand for foreign currency loans is backed by lower rates (around 7% for yuan, around 17% for rubles), including considering the possibility of payment from foreign currency earnings," the regulator added.

Consumer lending in February turned out higher than the Central Bank’s projections (annual growth in the range of 3-8%).

"Preliminarily such changes are largely ensured by credit cards where rates have always been quite high and thus less sensitive to changes of market rates. Nevertheless, we expect macroprudential limits to have a dampening effect on lending," the Bank of Russia said.

In corporate lending the share of nonperforming loans has decreased slightly - by 0.1 percentage points to 5.2%. In retail lending the share of nonperforming loans remains at the level of 4.3%.

That said, in unsecured consumer lending the share of nonperforming loans has fallen slightly - to 7.8% from 7.9%, while in mortgage lending, according to preliminary figures, it remained at 0.6%, according to files provided by the regulator.