Page 83 - RusRPTMar21

budgetary payments (which are skewed to year-end), but these funds mostly appeared on corporate and retail accounts with banks.
The Fitch-calculated sector average loans/deposits ratio was a reasonable 93% at end-2020. The cushion of liquid assets (cash and cash equivalents, placements with other banks of up to one month and unpledged government bonds) was 20% of system assets (unchanged since end-2019). Together with unpledged corporate bonds (mostly high-liquid), this comfortably covered customer accounts by 36% at end-2020.
8.1.1 Earnings
The sector's profit for the month of January amounted to RUB205bn rubles, which corresponds to the level of January 2020, but is almost a third higher than in December, mainly due to a positive foreign exchange revaluation amid a weakening ruble in the sector as a whole (RUB49bn rubles).
The number of profitable banks in January increased to 275 (75.3% of the total) - from 237 in December, although their share in the sector's assets slightly decreased to 96% - from 98% in the last months of 2020, which is due to losses of certain large banks, including the bank of non-core assets.
Banking sector profits ended 2020 with a cumulative total of RUB1.7 trillion of profits, not far behind the 2019 result of RUB2 trillion -- the best result in five years -- and well ahead of the previous four years.
This year Russian banks have got off to a good start as the January result of RUB205bn is slightly behind the 2019 start of RUB223bn, less than the 2018 result of RUB264, but way ahead of the previous three results of RUB71, RUB114, RUB32 and -RUB25 from 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 respectively. While Russia suffered a big economic shock in 2020 it was not a crisis year for the banking sector, which had its crisis in 2014 and spent the next three years recovering. Profits for the sector should be on the order of RUB2 trillion this year or more.
83 RUSSIA Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com