More mortgage loans issued in January 2017 than early last year

In January, banks issued to households more than 40 thousand ruble-denominated housing mortgage loans (HML) in the total amount of 71.1 billion rubles. Thereby, despite the traditional decline in lending early in the year, the banking sector ensured positive 15.1% year-on-year growth in lending in the first month of 2017. The average loan totalled 1.8 million rubles, the same as the previous month.

The weighted average interest rate on ruble-denominated HMLs issued over the month increased 0.29 pp to 11.84%, but remained 0.64 pp below the rate on loans issued in 2016.

The aggregate mortgage portfolio of banks totalled 4.5 trillion rubles, of which one fifth is made up of loans secured by claims on shared construction participation agreements. Foreign currency-denominated HMLs accounted for only 1.5%, an all-time low share.