The percentage of approval of applications for microloans in Russia has decreased.
Microfinance companies cut approval levels to lowest f indicators rom 2022 for both new and repeated customers. This is due to growth in the number of refusals to customers with maximum debt burden indicator. Market participants expect further refusal growth in autumn-winter season. As a result, competition for solvent borrowers will intensify, experts expect.
In July – August 2023, the level of approval of microloans for new borrowers amounted to 13.2%, for repeated borrowers it was 86.5%. This is the minimum value from the beginning of 2022, according to the materials of Moneyman. Even in spring of last year, which accounted for the main crisis phenomena in the economy, approval rate was 17-19% for new borrowers, the study says.
The main reasons are the decrease in the quality of incoming client traffic and lenders’ assessment of their own risks in terms of customer compliance to payment discipline, experts explained in Moneyman. At the end of 2023, the share of approvals can be up to 10 pp lower than in 2022 due to growth of the number of refusals to customers with the maximum debt burden indicator.
“It seems that the growth of population consumption due to the growth of lending in Russia is over – as the factor of economic growth. It ended even in MFI format, “- the economist, associate professor of RANEPA Sergey Hestanov notes.