Measuring Heterogeneity in Banks’ Interest Rate Setting in Russia

We use credit registry data on all corporate loans issued by Russian banks since 2017 to decompose bank interest spreads into a common factor, borrower- and lender-specific components. We find that the variation in loan rates associated with lender-specific factors (heterogeneity of banks) and borrower-specific factors (heterogeneity of borrowers) is substantial. We use the bank-specific components identified to measure the fragmentation of the corporate credit market in Russia. The results indicate that heterogeneity in banks’ interest rate setting is high and increased in the early stage of the pandemic. Finally, our results suggest that banks tightened non-interest loan conditions during the pandemic.