Nabiullina’s annual report to the State Duma: on monetary policy, the fight against poverty and scammers. Main

Chairman of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina presented the Central Bank’s report for 2023 in the State Duma. The head of the Central Bank spoke about the prospects for reducing the key rate, the state of the economy, the debt burden of the population and the fight against fraudsters.

• Raising the key rate of the Central Bank does not put an end to the development of the economy, which continues to grow at a high rate. In the fourth quarter, economic growth slowed slightly, but remained significant. At the end of the year, GDP grew by 3.6%.
• High key rate Central Bank protects The income of citizens is a direct contribution of monetary policy to the fight against poverty.
• The peak of inflation is behind us.
• The Central Bank will begin to reduce the rate when it is convinced that the slowdown in inflation has reached the desired speed and expectations have returned to normal.
• The Central Bank is working with other countries on “alternative solutions” for making payments. Retaliatory measures due to sanctions against the Russian payment system are theoretically possible, but they should be considered as extreme measures.
• The Bank of Russia advocates increasing fines for banks for dishonest enrichment at the expense of consumers, up to 1% of capital.
• The Central Bank will discuss with deputies additional measures to combat fraudsters, since so far it has not been possible to achieve a turning point in the fight against them – “we are hitting their tails.”
• Over the past two years, the share of mortgages to people with a high debt load has increased by one and a half times. Almost every second borrower in Russia in the fourth quarter of last year received a mortgage with the prospect that he would have to spend more than 80% of his income on payments.
• The Central Bank proposes to increase insurance for long-term deposits from three years to 2 million rubles. from the current 1.4 million rubles, and for irrevocable certificates – up to 2.8 million rubles.
• The influx of funds into deposits in Russian banks continues; in the first quarter it amounted to almost 2 trillion rubles.
• The share of corporate loans with floating rates has grown significantly over the past two years. In February, it was already 54%, which indicates business confidence that the Central Bank will move to lower the key rate
• Banks have already issued more than two hundred loan holidays to flood victims