Chairman of OAO Bank24.ru Sergey Lapshin believes there is no point in engaging in corporate lending in Russia in the next two or three years. This is what he said in the course of Elena Ischeeva’s Top People program broadcast via Banki.ru.

‘Three years ago, I could get money for, say, 15% a year and offer my customers a loan with an annual interest rate of 25%, which meant my margins would reach 10% a year. Let’s take a ten-billion lending portfolio, for instance. I knew that I’d make a billion worth of margins in a year on these ten billions,’ he explains.

Now, however, the economic situation and the monetary authorities’ policies are gradually making banks to attract money resources at the interest of 2% and lend for 3% a year, the chairman says.

‘This means I used to be able to net a billion off ten billions and now I can only get 100 millions. On the other hand, we still have to maintain the infrastructure, launch pay rises, and so on. My approach to the problem is a purely pragmatic one, it’s pure math I am trying to make clear,’ Banki.ru quotes Sergey Lapshin as saying.