The main objective of the new strategy is to maintain the effectiveness and positive image of the concessional mortgage as an important instrument of state support in solving the housing issue. To achieve this goal, the Central Bank plans to revise approaches to providing state support, focusing on financing exclusively standard, transparent and understandable mortgage programs. Such programs should be devoid of any complex and non-transparent mechanisms that allow unscrupulous market participants to make illegal profits.
“We plan to propose to the Ministry of Finance to revise the system of state support and focus exclusively on standard mortgage products, and when refinancing - to accept for consideration only securitized projects that meet all the requirements of transparency and reliability. In other words, our task is to completely exclude the possibility of using any “schemes” that only discredit the very idea of state support for mortgage lending,” Elvira Nabiullina emphasized.
The implementation of these measures will allow the Central Bank to make standard mortgage programs more attractive to citizens, while tightening the requirements for those loans, the terms of which significantly deviate from the established norms and standards. Thus, the regulator seeks to create fairer and more transparent conditions in the mortgage lending market, protecting the interests of borrowers.
It is important to note that earlier the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law on the introduction of a so-called “cooling-off period” for consumer loans. This measure allows citizens to cancel a previously arranged loan within a certain period of time without any financial losses, which also contributes to the improvement of financial literacy and protection of consumer rights.
In addition, the President of the Russian Federation signed a federal law authorizing the Central Bank to set macroprudential limits on mortgage and automobile loans to individuals. This tool allows the Central Bank to more effectively control the risks associated with overcrediting of the population and prevent destabilization of the financial system.
In turn, the State Duma recommended the Government of the Russian Federation to consider the possibility of developing and introducing a draft law on the provision of favorable mortgage terms for education workers. According to Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma, such a measure will help raise the prestige of the teaching profession and attract young personnel to schools.
We should not forget that, as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly emphasized, the implementation of preferential mortgage lending programs has made it possible to achieve record volumes of housing construction and enable hundreds of thousands of Russian families to improve their housing conditions.
In the context of discussing the situation in the mortgage lending market, it is worth mentioning that, according to available data, the highest mortgage interest rates in 2024 were recorded in the regions of the North Caucasus.
At the same time, according to analysts, the residents of Omsk in January this year were less active in applying for mortgage loans than in the same period last year.