Russian banks saw retail rouble deposits fall by 2 percent in September, while corporate loans grew at their slowest pace in 2-1/2 years as the global credit crunch left its mark, central bank data showed on Saturday. Retail deposits in the local currency fell to 5.06 trillion roubles ($221.9 billion) on October 1, from 5.17 trillion a month earlier.
The fall was partially compensated by an increase in foreign currency deposits, but overall retail accounts saw an outflow of 87.9 billion roubles or around 1.5 percent, taking their value down to 5.89 trillion roubles. That was the biggest monthly percentage drop over the period covered by the banking statistics data on the central bank's Web site, which goes back to the start of 2005.
There have been no major bank runs in Russia, but the global financial crisis and the depreciation of the rouble against the dollar has made some people less willing to hold their savings in rouble deposits, especially at smaller banks. Russia has over 1,000 banks, though the top five - including state-controlled VTB and Sberbank - account for 43 percent of the sector's assets.
The share of the smaller institutions has shrunk, with those ranked from 201 onwards now accounting for 7.2 percent of assets compared to 8.5 percent at the start of the year. The data also showed banks' credits to non-financial companies growing just 1.7 percent in September - their slowest monthly growth in 2-1/2 years - to 12.03 trillion roubles.
Total pre-tax profits in the sector reached 354.8 billion roubles, for the first nine months of the year, only slightly up from 353.5 billion a month earlier. The sum includes profits at profitable banks, offset by losses at the 65 loss-making ones.