The second-largest state bank in Russia by assets, VTB, is experiencing financial problems due to a sharp increase in loan defaults, which were issued, among other things, to finance military production, reported Bloomberg, citing sources among the bank's senior top managers.
According to the report published on July 31, VTB's net interest income (the difference between the interest the bank earns on loans and pays on deposits) fell by 49% over six months, to 146.8 billion rubles (1.9 billion US dollars). At the same time, the situation with the decline in lending income may be more serious than the official report indicates, writes the agency, citing assessments of the financial institution's top managers.
The share of overdue loans to individuals increased by a third over six months—from 3.8% to 5.2%. The share of corporate loans that the bank was forced to restructure increased by 1.5 times and reached 5.1%.
With 33 trillion rubles in assets and 8.2 trillion rubles in individual deposits, VTB incurred a net loss of 667 billion rubles in the first year of the war, setting an anti-record among all Russian banks. In 2023-24, it returned to profit—432 and 551 billion rubles, respectively. In the first half of the current year, VTB earned 280 billion rubles in net profit—10% less than a year earlier.
According to the agency's interlocutors, the decline in VTB's lending income looks even more serious considering that Sberbank's net interest income increased by 18.5% over six months.