Sberbank Warns of ‘Severe Crisis’ for Russian Firms if High Rates Persist

Russia’s corporate sector is straining under the weight of high interest rates and could face a “severe crisis” if the central bank’s tight monetary policy continues for another year, a top executive at Sberbank PJSC warned.
Anatoly Popov, deputy chairman of the board at Russia's largest lender, said that while businesses are currently managing to service their debts, their resilience is finite.
“Companies are holding on for now,” Popov said at a business event, according to Interfax. “But if we have another year of this policy, the situation could significantly worsen.”
The warning comes as official data points to growing stress on corporate balance sheets. Problem loans in the corporate sector stood at 3.2 trillion rubles ($36.5 billion) as of May 1, or 4% of the total portfolio, according to the Bank of Russia. Separately, credit rating agency ACRA estimates that borrowers holding 3.7 trillion rubles in debt are at risk of a significant deterioration in creditworthiness.
A recent central bank survey of 12,000 companies found that a shortage of working capital has become a primary constraint on operations. Popov confirmed this trend, noting that businesses are shunning long-term investment in favor of short-term loans.
“Clients are not taking long-term credits,” he said. “They are mostly taking short-term working capital loans for a year or less.”