Page 86 - RusRPTJun21

8.1.1 Earnings
The Russian bank sector profitability continued to follow the course of 2019, the first year of strong growth since the 2014 oil price shock that plunged Russia’s economy into stagnation.
April was also the month where the pandemic shock kicked in and as the chart shows banking sector profits in that month fell below the profits of 2017 and 2018. Having said that in 2020 banking sector profitability held up surprisingly well and in August almost regained the 2019 levels as the lockdown came off.
On a cumulative basis this year’s profits in April were slightly ahead of those in 2020 with banks earing RUB779bn ($10.6bn) over the first four months of the year, against RUB611bn a year earlier. That result was better than the RUB750bn that banks earned over the first four months of 2019 as well and way ahead of the preceding three years.
On a month-on-month basis banks also outperformed in March earning RUB201bn ($2.75bn) which is six times more than they earned in March 2020 and comfortably ahead of every year for the last five years.
86 RUSSIA Country Report June 2021 www.intellinews.com