The largest banks in January increased portfolios of term deposits – an increase of approximately 900 billion rubles. However, the market leader Sberbank has become an exception to the trend, Kommersant reports.
There is no revolution in the deposit market, says Igor Rastorguev, a leading analyst at AMarkets. Yes, according to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, in January 2025, the portfolio of deposits of individuals of Sberbank decreased by more than 150 billion rubles. However, it is worth looking at this figure in context: in terms of the amount of funds raised by individuals last year, Sberbank remained the undisputed leader. It attracted more than 15.7 trillion rubles for deposits of citizens. VTB (more than 7.7 trillion) and Alfa Bank (more than 3 trillion) are following Sber by a wide margin. Thus, in January, Sberbank lost less than 1% of the funds raised for deposits.
An outflow may be small because by the beginning of the calendar year, some depositors’ deposits had expired, and they preferred to transfer funds to other banks and open deposits there, since the conditions for newly opened deposits are more profitable than extending the deposit in their bank. The new rules, according to which from May 1, 2024, it is possible to transfer up to 30 million rubles from bank to bank without commission, allow this operation to be done without losses, the expert explains.
“The growth of T-Bank and VTB portfolios is partly due to the completed merger of other banks, as well as to aggressive marketing policies. The same can be said about the success of Alfa Bank. At the same time, upon closer examination, you can see that the conditions for deposits in these banks do not fundamentally differ from those offered by Sberbank,” Igor Rastorguev emphasizes.