Russia's largest lender Sberbank has today reported a record quarterly profit of more than $4 billion as lending picked up and margins improved, helping the bank continue its recovery from a difficult 2022.
The central bank ordered Russian banks to limit disclosures soon after Moscow despatched troops to Ukraine in February 2022 and sweeping Western sanctions rattled Russia's financial sector.
Sberbank, whose profits slumped almost 80% last year, did not provide a comparison with the year-ago period for most figures, but CEO German Gref said profits hit another record for the quarter.
"The dynamic development of the business, along with improving macroeconomic conditions gives us confidence that we will achieve our ambitious targets by the end of 2023," Gref said in a statement.
"Lending to private and corporate clients grew at a faster pace," he said. "In the second quarter, we issued the highest ever volume of loans - more than 6.6 trillion roubles."
Net profit was 380.3 billion roubles ($4.05 billion) in the second quarter, Sberbank said.
In the first half, Sberbank earned 737.5 billion roubles. It has previously said it expects to exceed the record 1.25 trillion roubles it made in 2021 this year.
Net interest income stood at 597.6 billion roubles, growing year on year due to an increase in the volume of operating assets and a recovery in business margins, Sberbank said.
Its Return on equity (ROE) - a measure of profitability - stood at 25.5%.
