"Sorry, I'm bankrupt": the number of insolvent Russians increased by 44%

Yekaterina Maximova

"More than seven years have passed since the appearance of the consumer bankruptcy procedure, so the growth rate of the number of these, mostly voluntary, procedures has decreased somewhat, but is still quite high, which confirms the demand for such a method of debt relief", - commented Alexey Yukhnin, head of Fedresource, on the decline in the number of bankruptcies.

The annual report of the Federal Resource clarifies that in 96.7% of cases, citizens themselves initiated their bankruptcy.

The share of bankruptcy creditors as applicants was 2.2% (was 3.9%), the Federal Tax Service of Russia – 1.0% (was 1.1%).

The Krasnodar Territory led the top five in the number of bankrupt individuals in 2022 (+43% by 2021). This is followed by the Moscow Region, Moscow, the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Sverdlovsk Region. The number of out-of-court bankruptcies of Russians (through the MFC) in 2022 increased by 52.6%.

Fedresurs clarifies that last year the MFC published 7118 reports on the initiation of out-of-court bankruptcy procedures for citizens. "The leaders in the total number of extrajudicial proceedings initiated in 2022 were the following regions: Chelyabinsk Region, Omsk Region, Sverdlovsk Region, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar Territory, Republic of Bashkortostan, Irkutsk Region, Kursk Region, Perm Region", - Fedresurs analysts said. 

But there were fewer corporate bankruptcies in 2022 than a year earlier.

Decrease - 12.2% (9 thousand 055 bankruptcies). The number of observations fell by 39% to 5.2 thousand pcs. in the same periods, it follows from the reports of arbitration managers in the Fedresource.

It's worth reminding that in 2022, a moratorium was imposed for six months on creditors filing bankruptcy applications for their debtors (with the exception of developers). After lifting the moratorium from October 1, 2022, Alexey Yukhnin noted, there was a short-term increase in applications. "The growth in the number of publications of creditors' intentions, which we observed immediately after the end of the moratorium, quickly exhausted itself. Based on this, there are no prerequisites for a surge in the number of corporate bankruptcies in the near future", - Alexey Yukhnin said.

Perhaps in 2023 the number of private bankruptcies will grow. As predicted by the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting, the current crisis will lead to an increase in overdue debts of borrowers. The share of non-performing and problem loans, according to analysts of Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-term Forecasting, will increase to 28.5%. The credit burden of Russian citizens is about 25 trillion rubles.

The most executive payers for banks are mortgagees. According to the National credit reporting agency, as of January 1, 2022, the mortgage arrears amounted to a minimum of 1.20%. Over the past year, banks have received mortgage loans in the amount of 4.8 billion rubles (5.6 billion by the end of 2021).