The growth rate of consumer credit in 2014 will be reduced by half - expert

Residual volume of lending to the economy of the country increased in January 2014 by 0.7% to 15,536.3 million manat.

According to the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, NPLs stood at 815.1 million manats, while their share in total loans compared to December 2013 rose to 5.2%.

In the real economy by banks issued 98% of all loans in the financial sector - 2% (previous year - 1.2%). In the sector structure of lending especially trend decline in the share of trade and services sector. So last year the share of this sector fell by 6.2 percentage points to 14.2%. The total volume of loans fell during the same period by 15.1% to 2,211.4 million manat.

In a different way things are with lending of households or, more simply, the consumer lending. For the year this type of loans increased by 43%, reaching 6,358.9 million or 40.9% of total loans. For comparison, compared to last year same period, the share of consumer loans increased 5.2%.

Commenting on the issue for Turan, expert assistance Economic Initiatives Center Samir Aliyev, said that in the coming months we can expect a significant reduction in the rate of growth of consumer loans. This is mainly due to the tightening of the Azerbaijani Central Bank lending requirements, the logical result of which could be redirected by the banks for lending to businesses. Today, business lending is generally carried out by large banks like IBA and Capital Bank, because this direction requires large financial resources, and the risks are much higher than in consumer lending.

As a result, according to the expert, in the current year growth of consumer lending may reach 15-20% while its share in total lending is below 40 percent. -15B -