The Central Bank of Russia has released its macroprudential settings for 2026 Q2, shifting most retail lending limits to an inclusion basis while largely keeping overall tightness at 2026 Q1 levels. The recalibration covers mortgages, unsecured consumer credit, car loans and vehicle-secured consumer loans, and is intended to give banks more room to originate lower-risk loans while still constraining high-risk lending. Alongside that broad recalibration, the bank tightened limits for individual housing construction mortgages and home equity loans, and left most macroprudential add-ons unchanged. For mortgages to buy housing under construction and existing apartments, the new structure keeps the same overall stringency as in 2026 Q1 but resets the buckets so limits apply to broader high-risk combinations, including high debt service-to-income ratio and low down payment or high loan-to-value exposures. For 2026 Q2, banks with a universal licence will face a 7% cap for new housing loans with debt service-to-income ratio above 80% or down payment below 20%, of which only 2% may have both debt service-to-income ratio above 50% and down payment below 20%. For existing housing loans, the aggregate cap is 20% for loans with debt service-to-income ratio above 80% or loan-to-value above 80%, including a 10% sub-limit for loans with both debt service-to-income ratio above 50% and loan-to-value above 80%. The Central Bank of Russia said prior measures had already reduced the share of riskier mortgage lending, with loans to borrowers whose debt service-to-income ratio exceeded 80% falling to 4% of new mortgage issuance in 2025 Q4 from 11% a year earlier. In individual housing construction mortgages, the cap on loans with debt service-to-income ratio above 80% is cut to 10% from 20%. For home equity loans, the 2026 Q2 cap becomes 25% for loans with debt service-to-income ratio above 50%, including 10% for loans above 80%, versus separate 2026 Q1 limits of 20% for the 50% to 80% band and 15% above 80%. In unsecured consumer lending, limits for banks and microfinance organisations are also recast on an inclusion basis without increasing overall strictness, even as non-performing loans in the segment rose to 13.0% as of 1 January 2026. Car loans and vehicle-secured general-purpose consumer loans are treated similarly, with unchanged overall stringency after earlier limits reduced lending to borrowers with debt service-to-income ratio above 50%. Outside retail lending, the Central Bank of Russia will raise the risk-weight add-on for increases in banks' credit claims on large highly leveraged companies to 100% from 40%, effective 1 March 2026, to accelerate capital buffer build-up as those borrowers continue to add debt faster than the wider corporate sector. The bank estimates the related macroprudential capital buffer could reach about RUB 200 billion by the end of 2026 and said it may raise the add-on further if risks increase. It did not revise add-ons for corporate foreign currency credit claims and left the national countercyclical capital buffer unchanged at 0.5 percentage points of banks' capital adequacy ratios.

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