Thanks to COVID-19, Russia now has more overdue loans than ever before

Russian banks and microfinance organizations have never had more overdue loans than they do right now: 12.6 million. According to new figures released by the National Association of Professional Collection Agencies and analysts at Equifax, the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has led to the credit boom. The number of loans in Russia at least 90 days overdue is 12.5 percent higher now than at this time last year, and more and more loans go unpaid every day, raising the total by 80,000–500,000 every month. 

Financial analysts warn that there will be 13.5 million overdue loans by the end of the year, meaning that one in six loans in Russia will be “problematic.”

Residents in Moscow and the surrounding region account for 1.4 million of Russia’s overdue loans. With 8,100 overdue loans, Ingushetia’s situation is brightest across the country. In terms of unpaid loans as a share of all debt, it’s worst in Chukotka, where 43.8 percent of all loans are currently overdue. (In Moscow, this figure is just 10.6 percent.)

In late September, Russia’s Central Bank drew attention to the falling quality of Russian banks’ loan portfolios over the past six months, due mainly to the restructuring of retail and corporate loans during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.