In the first half of 2026, Russian banks issued 21.67 million retail loans worth 6.4 trillion rubles – 29% and 47% more, respectively, than a year earlier. This is evidenced by the data of the United Credit Bureau.
We are talking about the number of loan agreements, not borrowers: one person can draw up several products. Microloans in MFIs are not included in these indicators.
More than half of the issuance – 11.73 million contracts, or 54% – fell on bank cash loans. In monetary terms, they occupied 36% of the market – 2.32 trillion rubles. The mortgage amounted to only 2.4% of the contracts, but provided another 35% of the issued amount: banks issued 521 thousand loans for 2.24 trillion rubles. The remaining 44% of contracts and 29% of the volume fell mainly on credit cards, car loans and POS loans.
For comparison, in the first quarter, banks issued retail loans for 2.82 trillion rubles, and MFIs – consumer microloans for 442 billion rubles. Thus, in terms of the volume of new issues, the share of microfinance organizations was approximately 14%, the share of banks – 86%.
The annual growth is mainly due to the effect of a low base after the contraction of lending at the beginning of 2025, an increase in the issuance of cash loans and support for mortgages by government programs, economists say.