RPT-Russia c.bank says NPLs slow, provisions adequate

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NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia Aug 27 (Reuters) - The pace of growth in Russian banks' non-performing loans has halved since the beginning of 2009 and banks have set aside adequate reserves to handle them, a member of the central bank board said on Thursday.

The bank had previously forecast 10-12 percent of the total portfolio would be classified as non-performing by the end of the year under what it called a "conservative" scenario.

"Rough numbers show that non-performing loans would reach 10 percent of the loan portfolio under a worst-case scenario, and under an optimistic scenario, the numers would be a lot lower," Mikhail Sukhov told a banking conference.

At 11 percent of retail portfolios and 7.9 percent of corporate portfolios, banks had set aside adequate provisions and new bank support measures were unlikely under the current macroecononic scenario, he said. (Reporting by Dmitry Sergeyev; writing by Melissa Akin; editing by ...)