Russia’s largest bank Sberbank has posted a net profit under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) of RUB 115bn in January 2024, making a return on equity of 20.7% versus 24.7% ROE seen in 2023, bne IntelliNews reports.
Sberbank posted a 21% year-on-year increase in RAS profit to a record 1.48 trillion roubles ($17bn) in 2023. At the same time, in December 2023 alone, RAS profit totalled RUB 116bn.
The return on equity, published in January, was slightly below the bank’s medium-term target of 22%, Renaissance Capital said on 12 February. The analyst commented:
Net interest and net fee and commission income declined slightly in January versus December (also due to seasonality), as did the level of operating expenses. The year-on-year growth of these indicators slowed down relative to December, but remained at a fairly high level.
At the same time, the cost of risk indicator increased (to 1.9%), which Sber attributed to higher provisioning costs due to deteriorating retail loan quality.
In January, Sberbank’s corporate loan portfolio shrank by 1.1% month-on-month (+24.2% YoY) after growing by 1.2% in December, due to both seasonality and the effect of higher interest rates.
Retail lending growth was 0.6% m/m in January (+28.9% yoy) after 0.3% a month earlier. At the same time, mortgage portfolio grew by 0.4% m/m, card products portfolio grew by 3.6% m/m, while consumer loans contracted by 0.1% m/m amid tighter regulation by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (CBRF).
In terms of funding, retail deposits declined by 1.9% m/m (due to seasonality), while corporate deposits grew by 4.5% m/m.
The total capital adequacy ratio (N1.0) increased by 0.2 p.p. to 13.3%, exceeding the CBR norm and the level required by the bank’s dividend distribution policy.
Sberbank, which is under full blocking sanctions, did not pay dividends for 2021 in the amount of 623 billion rubles.
However, the bank surprised with a record dividend of 565bn rubles ($7.3bn) in 2022, more than double the 271bn rubles net profit the bank made last year. The state (50% plus one share of Sberbank) will be the largest recipient of dividends in the amount of RUB 282.5bn.
