Three Russian banks raise October mortgage rates as September lending data arrive

Gazprombank, Bank DOM.RF and PSB raised selected market mortgage rates in October 2026, according to RBC's October 21 report citing DOM.RF monitoring and bank comments. The evidence concerns particular lending offers. It does not establish that every major Russian bank increased rates or that mortgage approvals and completed lending fell.

A newer official release provides the lending backdrop. The Bank of Russia's September mortgage review, updated on October 30, records 617.1 billion rubles of ruble mortgage lending. That observation predates the October price changes and cannot measure their effect.

Which banks changed their offers

RBC reported the following changes to market mortgage programs:

• Gazprombank increased rates by 0.2 percentage point from October 15, to 17.9 percent for apartment purchases and refinancing under the reported conditions. Loans below 7 million rubles carried an 18.9 percent rate.
• Bank DOM.RF raised rates by 0.5 percentage point. Apartment loans started at 18.8 percent, house construction at 19.5 percent and purchases of completed houses at 19.7 percent, before individual discounts and surcharges.
• PSB increased rates for new and existing apartments by 0.44 percentage point on October 2, to 18.49 percent. Its refinancing rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 17.99 percent.

These are dated reported offers, not a guarantee of terms available to every applicant on October 31. They also do not establish an October increase by Sberbank or VTB. Adding those banks to the list would require separate evidence of a change, rather than an undated product page or a comparison of unlike programs.

A rate quote is not an approval measure

A minimum or base rate describes a price subject to conditions. Loan size, the property, insurance and individual discounts can affect which offer applies. The reported rates should therefore retain their qualifications rather than be converted into a single universal borrowing cost.

Russia Economy's analysis is that three different questions must remain separate: what a bank advertises, which applications it approves and what loans it actually disburses. A change in the first does not supply figures for the other two. Even a reported increase in applications would not, without more information, establish an increase in approvals or completed purchases.

Our housing and mortgage market explainer describes the distinction between subsidized lending and market loans. That distinction is especially relevant when comparing an advertised market rate with an average calculated across all mortgages.

The policy backdrop does not prove a common cause

On October 23, the Bank of Russia kept its key rate at 14 percent. Its statement assessed monetary conditions as moderately tight and said interest rates had risen in most financial market segments. This is an official policy decision and assessment, not a directive specifying the mortgage prices of individual banks.

The increases reported on October 21 preceded that decision. They cannot be described as a reaction to an October 23 rate increase, because the central bank did not announce one. The key rate explainer discusses the wider transmission mechanism, which does not require every lending rate to move simultaneously.

A separate policy change affected subsidized mortgages. The Finance Ministry's September 24 announcement, reproduced by Garant, said Family Mortgage rates and loan limits would vary with family size and region for new contracts from October 1. It also introduced a 15 year maximum subsidy period. These are program rules, not evidence that every borrower switched to market credit or that every bank repriced for the same reason.

What September lending actually shows

The Bank of Russia's September mortgage review reports 125,200 ruble mortgages totaling 617.1 billion rubles, up 44.8 percent by number and 62.1 percent by value from August. These are official lending data for September, not October application statistics.

State supported lending accounted for 433.5 billion rubles, about 70 percent of the total. Market lending reached 183.6 billion rubles, up 9.9 percent. The central bank associated September's elevated activity with anticipated changes to Family Mortgage. That explanation is the regulator's assessment, rather than a causal conclusion derived from the rate quotations above.

The average rate on new mortgages fell to 8.6 percent from 10.1 percent as subsidized loans took a larger share, the regulator said. The average for market mortgages remained 18.0 percent. September interest rate reporting is marked preliminary. A lower overall average therefore does not establish that market mortgages became cheaper for a comparable borrower.

The October outcome remains a separate question

The October 30 official volume supersedes the earlier 614 billion ruble preliminary estimate published by DOM.RF Bank on October 8 for purposes of this article. The two releases should not be combined into one series without checking definitions and vintages.

The available evidence establishes selected October price increases and a September lending expansion. It does not yet establish the full October volume, a nationwide approval trend or the effect of those price changes on completed borrowing. Those conclusions require subsequent lending and approval data, with market and subsidized programs identified separately.