FACTBOX-Russia's banks struggle with bad loans

June 1 (Reuters) - Russian banks could see their profits erased in 2009 if bad loans rise to 10 percent of credit portfolios.

Following are links to recent government and industry forecasts for the banking industry:

GOVERNMENT AND CENTRAL BANK FORECASTS

May 28, 2009 - Central Bank Chairman Sergei Ignatyev said the situation with non-performing loans was difficult but not critical and unlikely to lead to the collapse of Russia's entire banking system [ID:nLS385016]

May 22 - The share of non-performing loans may climb to 20 percent by the end of 2009, the head of the Russian deposit insurance agency Alexander Turbanov said, providing the gloomiest forecast from officials to date.

May 20 - Russia's banks will need at least $15.65 billion of extra capital if non-performing loans stand at 10-12 percent this year, said Alexei Simanovsky, head of the central bank's banking supervision department said. [ID:nLK55866]

May 5 - Russian banks' assets shrank for the second month in a row in March, after more than three years of consecutive growth, while retail deposits decreased slightly for the first time since November 2008. [ID:nL5758149]

April 6 - Russian banks' assets shrank for the first time in more than three years in February, while bad loans rose 94.5 billion roubles to 2.8 percent of the total credit portfolio, data showed. [ID:nL6670400]

April 3 - Banks may avoid a second wave of the crisis, this time linked to bad loans, Sergei Ignatyev, the head of the central bank, said. Authorities had several months to examine the possibility of buying out bad assets from banks, he said. [ID:nL3431000]

March 25 - Russian banks can count on further state help should bad loans rise to 10 percent forcing them to make provisions of $45 billion, officials said. The central bank said recapitalisation was still preferred to a bad bank. [ID:nLP675712]

BANKER AND ANALYST COMMENTS

June 1, 2009 - Russian banks may need around 1.3 trillion roubles ($41.51 billion) for recapitalisation in 2009, Moody's said on Monday, predicting capital erosion would be the major trigger for rating downgrades [ID:nL1554029]

May 19 - Problem loans could soar to 35-50 percent of total lending in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, though actual loan losses will be no more than half that level in Russia, Standard & Poor's said. [ID:nLJ957879]

March 27 - Hundreds of small Russian banks could go bankrupt as the level of bad loans is likely to hit 15-20 percent by the end of the year, Alfa Bank President Pyotr Aven said. [ID:nLR556212]

Feb. 6 - Sberbank will suffer a net loss if the share of non-performing loans goes beyond 3.4 percent and for VTB, a 3.5 percent level is the line in the sand, according to UBS estimates. [ID:nLU633039]

SBERBANK

May 20, 2009 - Sberbank said provisions against bad loans could show short-term spikes as high as 20 percent of the total portfolio in 2010, but the bank could still post profits. [ID:nL0377845]

March 24 - Sberbank said its non-performing loans (NPL) were at 2.1 percent of the credit portfolio as of March 1, up from 1.7 percent at the end of January. [ID:nLO494092]

Feb. 18 - Sberbank said it expected provisions to reach 5.0-7.5 percent by the end of 2009 and would need to seek fresh capital if provisions rose to 11-12 percent of loans, an executive said. [ID:nLI807077]

VTB

April 21, 2009 - VTB has already restructured 15 percent of its loan portfolio and sees "problem debt" at around the 7 percent mark, the bank's head Andrei Kostin said. [ID:nLL49618]

April 3 - Bad loans will not exceed 8 percent of VTB's portfolio this year, Chief Executive Andrei Kostin said. [ID:nL2952652]

Feb. 12 - VTB set up a debt centre to manage bad loans but said it had no plans to spin them off into a "bad bank". [ID:nLC24585]

ALFA BANK

April 21, 2009 - Alfa Bank, the country's largest privately owned bank, has restructured around 5 percent of its total loan portfolio and expects overall lending to decrease this year. [ID:nLL49618]

April 16 - Alfa Bank expects no profit for 2009 as provisions for bad loans soar, bank President Pyotr Aven said. [ID:nLG251190]

For an analysis on Sberbank SBER03.MM and VTB (VTBR.MM) earnings performance for 2009 year as bad loans rise see [ID:nLU633039]

For an analysis on the possibility of a Russian-style "bad bank" see [ID:nLO139164]

(Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev, editing by Will Waterman)