MOSCOW, July 1 The amount of capital of microcredit companies (MCCs) from July 1, 2023 should be at least 4 million rubles. The increase in capital will increase the stability of MCCs, which occupy the lion's share of the microfinance market, the Bank of Russia explained.
Microcredit companies are small microfinance organizations that have the right to issue microloans up to 500 thousand rubles to individuals, and up to 3 million rubles to legal entities. At the same time, they cannot attract investments from individuals who are not their founders or shareholders, or issue bonds, and they are supervised by a self-regulatory organization.
Thus, according to the law adopted in July 2019, the requirements for the minimum amount of own funds of the MCC should be gradually increased starting from 2020. Previously, the requirements have already been increased three times: from July 1, 2020 — up to 1 million rubles, from July 1, 2021 — up to 2 million rubles, and from July 1, 2022 — up to 3 million rubles.
Another increase is planned from July 1 next year: up to 5 million rubles.
The press service of the Bank of Russia said that now 1,037 microcredit companies out of 1,071 microfinance organizations operate in the microfinance market. «The increase in the minimum capital size of MCCs increases their stability. Such an increase is carried out in stages so that companies can find money to increase their capital,» the Central Bank noted.
At the same time, according to the data of the association of microfinance organizations SRO «MiR» for the first quarter of 2023, 79 microcredit companies (this is 29% of the total number of members of the organization) have not yet reached 4 million rubles.