Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sberbank German Gref believes that the Central Bank needs to lower the key interest rate, because at the current rate “the Russian economy cannot last for a long time.”
Gref made such a statement, RBC wrote, at the annual meeting of shareholders of Sber.
He believes that the Russian economy has already become too cold. “Look at how many difficulties are arising now, including energy problems,” Greif said. “We have a number of non-macroeconomic factors influencing price increases.” He did not specify exactly what factors he was talking about.
The day before, RBC recalls that Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Alexei Zabotkin said that the regulator would take into account the fuel crisis in Russia when updating the macroeconomic forecast for the next meeting on the key interest rate (scheduled for July 24).
Meanwhile, Zabotkin in early June, I mentioned Forbes said the central bank saw no signs of “hypothermia” in the economy. In his opinion, this will be expressed in the “release of labor resources”, but unemployment in Russia, according to official data, remains at a historically low level.
The last time the central bank revised its key interest rate was on June 24, 2026. The rate was then cut by 25 basis points – to 14.25%. Meanwhile, most experts expected the regulator to cut interest rates by 50 basis points.
The prime rate sets the conditions under which banks receive funds from the central bank and, consequently, issue loans to their customers and set interest rates on deposits for them.