Contrary to expectations, in April the share of overdue debt on loans to individuals declined significantly. Improvement has occurred in the conditions of difficult economic situation on the background of the pandemic. Experts explain the ongoing provision of credit vacation population, but do not believe in the long-term trend and waiting for a few months a sharp rise in bad debts.In April 2020 was a reduction in the rate of overdue more than 30 days loans in all segments of retail lending. This is evidenced by data from the National Bureau of credit histories (NBCH). In the analysis we considered the ratio of loans overdue to the total number of existing loans. Especially notable reduction is made in the segments of consumer credits — by 1.6 percentage points (PP) to 21.4%, and auto loans rose by 1.7 percentage points (to 7.1%). In the mortgages segment, the decline was only 0.5 percentage points to 1.6%, and credit card — 0.2 percentage points to 9.3%.At the same time for 12 months overdue debt has decreased for all segments is provided by: car loans by 1.4 percentage points, mortgage — by 0.3 p. p. credit card — 0.7 percentage points For mortgages and car loans the figure was the lowest for this period.However, the proportion of delinquency on unsecured loans rose by 0.9 percentage points the Main reason for the reduction of delay in April could become the program of restructuring of the debt of citizens to banks (see “Kommersant” on 14 may). Mode isolation, as well as the economic situation in the country and the world in March—April, of course, would lead to an increase in bad debts. “However, the actions of the state and the banks still were able to neutralize the effects of the epidemic and measures to combat it for retail lending”,— says marketing Director of NCB Alexey Volkov. We are talking about solutions for the introduction of a grace period deferment of the repayment of principal amount and payment of interest on loans and credit holidays and on their own restructuring programs of banks, experts say.These programs “helped to reduce the debt burden on customers and not allowed to go into arrears more than 30 days,” agrees the Director of Department of analytical management and development of relations with clients of ROSBANK Catherine Aliyev.However, according to experts, one should not expect that the decrease in the level of delay will continue for a long time. According to senior Manager of risk management Department of Deloitte Denis Gavrilin, in a further trend in the decline of outstanding debt is highly unlikely due to the decrease of solvency of subjects of falling business activity and economic downturn. The General Director of BCI “Equifax” Oleg Lagutkin believes that the growth of the delay “is more likely closer to the end of the year when most clearly felt the effects of the current crisis.” As the Director of the direction “Financial institutions” S&P Sergey Voronenko, banks began the year 2020 with the lowest in the last decade, the share of problem loans — about 4.3%. Thus, according to him, the credit growth in 2020 will be reduced to 8-10%, while as the aging of the loan portfolio will increase and credit losses. As a result, said Mr. Voronenko, overall for the year the share of problem loans in the retail segment can grow up to 6-8%.However, there are more pessimistic assessment. According to Denis Gavrilin, “probably by the end of June we will see the start of growth for this indicator, the V-shaped curve, the rate of growth is expected to be significant”. According to him, in the summer the share of overdue loans may reach 8-9% on average for the aggregate portfolio of individuals, and at the maximum it can slightly exceed 10%.Svetlana Samuseva, Olga Cherenkova
