Russia’s banking sector has lost around 1.5 trillion rubles ($24.8 billion) in the first half of 2022. Top Central Bank official has shared the following data said on Friday.
It is the first time the Central Bank has revealed about the financial results since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February.
The Central Bank’s first deputy chairman, Dmitry Tulin, said that, “The loss-making banks lost 1.9 trillion rubles and profit-making banks made 400 billion rubles. Thus, algebraically, we get a total loss of 1.5 trillion rubles.”
After the beginning of the war, the Central Bank has stopped publishing figures for the banking sector and banned lenders from publishing regular earnings reports as Western nations froze Russia’s financial assets abroad and imposed sanctions on Russia’s banks.
As per reports, the loss for the Russian banking sector is the first in seven years.
Tulin added that one-quarter of Russian banks posted losses in January through June, while three-quarters remained profitable.
As per Tulin, two-thirds of first-half losses in 2022, or 1 trillion rubles, related to foreign currency operations.
While noting that Russian banks still had 7 billion rubles ($116 billion) in reserves, he further added, “We can say that we have managed with few casualties so far.”
“A smaller part of this capital reserve has been used as a result of these losses. That’s not the most expensive price for overcoming the consequences of the powerful blow dealt to our banking system by sanctions,” Tulin said.
The banker forecast Russia’s banking sector to close out 2022 with losses of 1.5 trillion rubles or less.