Sberbank intends to help borrowers in difficult financial situations
Sberbank, Russia’s largest savings bank, has declared its readiness to make life easier for borrowers, who have lost jobs in connection with the ongoing financial crisis, and consequently, are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their credit obligations, German Gref, the bank’s president cum CEO said at a recent meeting with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin.
The proposed anti-crisis program, designed by the bank to help borrowers, who have found themselves in strenuous financial situations, envisages granting such problematic clients the right to defer payments on their mortgages for up to a year and/or the opportunity to restructure such loans for the same period under the guarantee of the Agency for Housing and Mortgage Loans, the federal agency, overseeing the government’s policy on mortgages in the country.
Besides, the Sberbank management has also said it is ready grant problematic borrowers an opportunity to convert foreign-currencies-denominated loans into their ruble equivalents — a move to relieve this category of borrowers of the unjustified currency risks caused by the incessant volatility on the forex market and other negative circumstances that are exacerbating their financial problems and creditworthiness.
“Many citizens took loans in foreign currencies, but the majority of them do not receive incomes in foreign currencies. These borrowers took on themselves certain currency risks when the ruble started appreciating, and have now seen their mistakes,” Gref said. “In this connection, we have taken a decision that, effective from the New Year, to convert the loans of individual borrowers from foreign currencies into their ruble equivalents based on Sberbank’s internal exchange rate. Thus, Sberbank will now shoulder the currency risks that were previously borne by clients, who had taken foreign currencies-denominated loans.”
However, for all these ‘client-friendly’ measures to evolve into practical reality, both the government and all the corresponding official agencies will have to adopt certain new normative acts, Gref added. “In this connection, Sberbank has already sent its proposals to the Finance Ministry with the hope that the whole issues will be resolved before Jan. 1, 2009.”
Web design,