As many as 123K Russians have gone bankrupt over the past three years, head of enforced collection and bankruptcy at Sberbank Troubled Asset Management Department Yevgeny Akimov said during a Vedomosti conference, Bankruptcy in Russia: Myths and Reality, on September 13.
“In 2018, 44K bankruptcy lawsuits were filed, and another 29K in the first half of 2019. Overall in the last three years, 123K Russians have been declared bankrupt,” the expert noted.
The number of bankruptcies is actually growing, he said, already outpacing some European countries.
“For example, in Germany, 6.6 mio people are potentially bankrupt, while in Russia, their number is somewhere between 7 and 12 mio – there are no exact figures,” Akimov added.
At the same time, the number of bankruptcy filings is increasing more slowly in Russia – at 44K a year, compared with 130K a year in Germany. As many as 90% of all bankruptcies in Russia are nonbusiness bankruptcies, Akimov explained.
“The government is now thinking of ways to simplify the personal bankruptcy procedure. A bill published yesterday allows using a bankruptcy receiver in cases where the total debt does not exceed RUR 500K ($7.8K); this should actually introduce an extrajudicial bankruptcy procedure,” the expert concluded.