Moscow: Russia’s top lender Sberbank reported on Thursday a 20 per cent drop in profit for 2014, hurt by a jump in its funding costs and higher loan-loss provisions as an economic crisis and slide in the rouble weighed.
Sberbank said it earned 290.3 billion roubles ($5.14 billion) in 2014, beating analysts’ forecasts for net profit of 275.8 billion roubles. The bank said the main factor weighing on its results was higher loan-loss provisions. They reached 357 billion roubles last year, more than twice the figure in 2013. Sberbank is one of several large Russian banks under Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, which drive up its cost of financing by limiting its access to international capital.
