Russia’s largest state-owned lender Sberbank recorded the highest profit in its history last year thanks to a surge in lending, underlining the recovery of the country’s financial sector from the first wave of western sanctions related to Vladimir Putin’s full scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Moscow-based lender increased profits more than fivefold to Rbs1.5tn ($16.3bn) in 2023, accounting for almost half of the Rbs3.3tn aggregate profits the country’s banks generated.
Isolated from the world’s capital markets, Russian banks have benefited from a boom in domestic lending as households have rushed to take on state-subsidised mortgages and corporate lending has soared.