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intensification of the political crisis in Belarus, we think the RUB/$rate could avoid a large chunk of the risk premium by YE20 and end the year at 73.2.
8.0 Financial & capital markets 8.1 Bank sector overview
The consumer lending market may face another collapse by the end of the year, reports RBC. Recovery growth is exhausted, new drivers have not appeared.
In September, for the first time since April, the issuance of unsecured loans decreased in Russia, writes RBC. This is another confirmation that the demand delayed due to the coronavirus has been exhausted, and the uncertainty due to it has increased again.
The September data was published by the United Credit Bureau (OKB) - the only one taking into account Sberbank. In September, banks issued 1.34mn unsecured cash loans for RUB453.6bn.
The issuance of loans by August decreased by 3% in terms of volume and 5% in terms of quantity, in annual terms, respectively, by 5% and 13%. This is all the more remarkable because in July-August the volume of approved loans returned to the pre-crisis level and exceeded the corresponding indicators of 2019 by 3-4%.
Part of the decline in unsecured lending is due to seasonal factors - the end of the vacation season and the preparation of children to go to school, experts say.
The main one-off factor, they say, is the exhaustion of the effect of deferred demand for loans after the April collapse. The fact that the pent-up demand stopped moving the economy as a whole at the end of July was directly indicated by the Central Bank - the recovery began to resemble the square root instead of the letter V, economists told The Bell.
Another factor is the low willingness of banks and the public to take risks. This is directly related to the second wave of coronavirus, about, which there is only bad news in the last couple of weeks.
Another situation in the mortgage lending market. The number of mortgage loans (169,400) exceeded the figure for August by 16%, and last September - by 65%. There is now talk of a possible bubble in mortgage
80 RUSSIA Country Report November 2020 www.intellinews.com
