Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, has posted a FY 2009 net profit of 24.4 billion roubles under IFRS.

The bottom line is down 75% year on year, with FY net interest income up 32.9% year on year to 502/7 billion roubles, FY net fee and commission income up 17.3% to 101.1 billion roubles, and retail accounts and deposits up 21% to reach 3.787 trillion roubles as at December 31 2009.

Sberbank noted that it continued to increase lending despite the deteriorating economic environment in 2009, with its gross loan portfolio up 3.1% for the year to 4.2 trillion roubles and its corporate loan portfolio up 6.1% for the year to 4.26 trillion roubles. At the same time non performing loans grew from 94.7 billion roubles at the end of 2008 to 464.2 billion roubles at the end of 2009, with the non performing loan ratio rising from 1.8% at the start of the year to 8.5% at the end. Provision charges for loan impairment reached 388.9 billion, 4 times the amount in 2008, with provisions for loan impairment rising 2.9 times to 579.8 billion roubles.