YEREVAN, February 17. /ARKA/. The aggregate retail portfolio of Russia’s banks is believed to shrink by 15% this year, Dmitry Olyunin, head of Rosbank, was quoted by Banki.ru as saying on Tuesday at his meeting with journalists.

Olyunin told journalists that demand for loans subsided 80%. “This contraction will remain and will stabilize at about 50%,” he said. “We will likely be speaking about some compression of the retail segment of the loan portfolio.”

He also pointed out decrease of retail business margin as another peculiarity of this year. “Banks raised rates, but, new loans will bring no significant marginal income amid the low demand,” he said.

The banker also stressed that the pace of increase of overdue loans is uncertain in Russia. “We see no explosive increase in overdue loans, but expect increase in the retail portfolio’s default,” Olyunin said.

“It is difficult to gauge mutual influence of reduction of the resources available to the population and inflation processes so far,” he added. --0--