UrBC, Yekaterinburg, June 28, 2019. The number of consumer loans issued to Sverdlovsk Region-based applicants in May 2019 dropped by 12.5% against May 2018, that is, from 50,900 down to 44,500, the National Credit History Bureau reports.

This was the most noticeable drop among the country’s top thirty consumer lending markets (broken down by federal constituencies). Khabarovsk Territory (a decrease of 10.8%), Udmurtia (a 10.7% drop), Altay Territory (-7.6%), and Krasnodar Territory (-6.3%) come next.

In Russia on the whole, the number of newly issued consumer loans declined by 3.3% in May 2019, down from 1.45 million in May 2018 to 1.4 million.

‘We believe the decrease has to do with the banks’ waning appetite for risk-taking as the Central Bank has been taking steps to ‘cool down’ the retail lending market. This is why banks are trying to be more selective in who they issue consumer loans to and prefer to work with people who have good credit history,’ says the National Credit History Bureau’s Director-General Alexander Vikulin.

The data got obtained from 4,000 lending institutions which share their information with the Bureau’s system.