UrBC, Moscow, October 7, 2015. Russian banks issued their customers 1.514m loans amounting to 181bn RUR altogether in August; this was 9% less than in the previous month, United Credit Bureau’s press service reports.

‘1.514m loans worth 181bn RUR were issued in August and 1.558m loans worth over 199bn RUR were issued in July,’ the bureau reports.

For one, 131bn RUR worth of cash loans were issued to private customers in July and only 117bn RUR worth of those were issued to customers in August.

The number of car loans also went down from 19,000 to 17,000, even thought the overall amounts actually rose from 11.9bn RUR to 12.4bn RUR. Experts say this has to do with growing car prices following the weakening of the Russian ruble in August.