The Central Bank goes down: the regulator will once again cut the key rate

Long before that, financial analysts shared their forecasts and the majority came to the conclusion that today the Central Bank of the Russian Federation will cut the rate by 0.5%, that is, from 8% to 7.5%.

Yekaterina Maksimova

And before the end of the year, financiers do not exclude, the regulator will have time to cut the key rate two more times - to 7-6.5% per annum. Let us recall with what key indicators Elvira Nabiullina 's department is approaching today's decision.

Inflation beats deflation

Long-term deflation is one of the reasons why the regulator is likely to lower the key rate to 7.5% today. Deflation in Russia was recorded for several months in a row. "NI" reported that such long periods of price decline in the modern history of Russia have not been recorded since the pre-crisis period of the 90s.

According to Rosstat, we recall that in June the consumer price index amounted to 99.65%, in July - 99.61%. In August, this indicator fluctuated at the level of 99.92 - 99.87%. In annual terms, at the beginning of September, inflation fell to 14.8%. Vegetables and fruits fell most noticeably.

Experts interviewed by NI warned at the time that the deflationary food miracle was about to end. And so it happened: in the period from September 6 to September 12, deflation in Russia began to noticeably slow down and amounted to an insignificant 0.03% . This was recorded by Rosstat.

The Central Bank in its September review "What the Trends Say" also noted that the situation will soon begin to change and the rate of price growth will accelerate. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation considers both the rise in prices in the service sector and the revival of the lending market to be signs of inflationary pressure. But the regulator still emphasizes that sustainable inflationary pressure is now at the level of the inflation target of the Bank of Russia.

Analysts at Promsvyazbank note that in the non-food segment, which was practically unaffected by deflation, prices are rising more and more clearly. “Medicines, gasoline, household chemicals and light industry goods are becoming more expensive. Only building materials and electronics are becoming cheaper. In services, there is again a surge in inflation. So far, the inflation trend remains within the forecast: 13.5% at the end of September and 12% at the end In our opinion, the Central Bank has no grounds for refusing to cut the key rate today," Promsvyazbank analysts also believe.

Mortgage did not disappoint

During the period when the key rate from February 28 soared from 9.5% to a record 20% and then dropped several times, the mortgage lending market collapsed by 71%. According to Dom. RF, for the entire second quarter for the purchase of apartments ("primary" and "secondary") banks issued 151 thousand loans for 554.8 trillion rubles (in monetary terms, this is minus 64%). Since August, the situation has begun to change: in the last month of summer, 124,000 mortgage loans were issued for a total of 464 trillion rubles.

With the current key rate of 8%, banks, on average, lend to mortgage lenders under the following conditions: a mortgage for the purchase of an apartment in a new building is issued at 10.05% per annum, loans with state support 6.63%, family mortgages 5.63%. Transactions in the "secondary" are credited at 10.18%, follow from the data of Dom.RF.

Loans for life

The reduction of the key rate is traditionally followed by the reduction of rates on bank loans for individuals and legal entities.

The consumer lending market has already begun to actively revive. The National Bureau of Credit Histories calculated that in August alone, Russians issued 1.10 million consumer loans. This is 8.5% more than in July (then 1.02 million loans were issued). The average bill of consumer loans is now 269.3 thousand rubles, which is 3.6% higher than the values of previous months. Moreover, this is the highest value since September 2021.

In total, for the period from January to July, according to the NBKI, citizens borrowed 1.25 trillion rubles from banks. Compared to last year, this is 46.6% less.

Rates frozen since August

According to the Central Bank, the rates of banks on ruble deposits of individuals have not actually changed since the summer.

The average maximum rate of the top 10 Russian banks in early September was 6.84%.

Over the year, the indicator (in the first ten days of March) reached a peak level of 20.51% - against the backdrop of an increase in the key rate by the Central Bank to 20%. And then rates consistently decreased following the reduction of the key rate. Since June 1, if you look at the summer months by decades, the rates have changed constantly. In June, money could be entrusted to a bank for storage at 9.09 - 8.11%. In July, under 7.6%. And in August already at 6.8% per annum.

Despite this, depositors are still in no hurry to withdraw their money from bank accounts. According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, in July-August the volume of deposits even increased - by 530 billion rubles. "Citizens continue to use mainly ruble deposits in Russian banks to place their savings, the volume of which increased by 1.9 trillion rubles in the second quarter, and by 530 billion rubles in July-August," the Central Bank reported.

As a result of today's meeting of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina will traditionally make a statement and explain the logic of the regulator's actions.