Make your bet: The Central Bank may lower the key to 13% by the end of 2026
By the end of next year, the regulator may lower the rate quite significantly — up to 13%, experts interviewed by Izvestia expect. The Central Bank will continue to reduce the key rate in 2026, Elvira Nabiullina said, speaking in the State Duma. Now we need to end the period of high price growth as soon as possible and prevent the economy from hypothermia, said the head of the Bank of Russia. However, one should proceed cautiously so as not to negate all the progress made. This means that an acceptable business rate can be expected only in 2027, experts say. At the same time, a recession may be avoided. When inflation reaches the target — in the material of Izvestia.
What will be the key rate in 2026
The cycle of reducing the key rate will cover the whole next year, said the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, speaking at a meeting of the State Duma committees to consider the main directions of monetary policy for 2026-2028. The Bank of Russia began easing monetary policy in June, and in four months it lowered the rate by 4.5 percentage points. The last time the Central Bank's board of directors lowered the key rate on October 24 from 17% to 16.5%.
Decisions to change the rate are now based, among other things, on the need to end the period of high price growth as soon as possible and prevent the economy from hypothermia, Elvira Nabiullina added. She noted that she understands how difficult it is for businesses, especially small ones, during this period. However, "a hasty rate cut would undo all the progress made, and we would have to go through the whole path over again," the head of the Central Bank emphasized.
The regulator may reduce the rate to 13% next year, experts interviewed by Izvestia expect.
The news was the Central Bank's revision of its average level for 2026 from 12-13% to 13-15%, said Boris Kopeikin, chief economist at the Stolypin Institute for Growth Economics. According to him, this means that it will decrease much more slowly than previously expected, and a more or less acceptable level for business is now expected only in 2027. At the same time, by the end of 2026, the rate may well be at the level of 11-12%, the expert predicts.
Fyodor Sidorov, the founder of the School of Practical Investment, also gave an optimistic forecast. In his opinion, by the end of next year, the Central Bank may lower the key to 11.5–12.5%. But this will happen provided that inflation steadily decreases in the second half of 2026 and the disinflationary effects of fiscal policy persist.
Depending on one scenario or another, the rate may be at the level of 12-15% at the end of next year, said financial advisor and founder of Rodin.Capital Alexey Rodin. At the same time, according to Sergey Zaversky, head of the Analytical Research Department at the Institute for Integrated Strategic Studies, 13-14% are more likely.
He recalled that the Central Bank made it clear that it could return to using more careful steps when changing the key one, and even with its high level in numerical terms, it could move to a step of less than 1 percentage point.
The central bank will continue to take a prudent, cautious approach to lowering the rate, because sudden changes can trigger a new round of inflation or, conversely, plunge the economy into recession, so balance is extremely important here, said Dmitry Tselishchev, managing director of the Rikom-Trust investment company. Annual inflation in September was 7.98%, in August — 8.14% and 8.79% in July, the head of the Central Bank recalled.
What awaits the Russian economy
— Now everything points to the fact that the economy is following the scenario of a controlled exit from overheating of demand. Demand growth has slowed down, but the production potential, on the contrary, is expanding and gradually catching up with demand," said Elvira Nabiullina, speaking in the State Duma.
The controlled exit scenario means a decrease in demand while trying to maintain supply, explained Peter Arronet, chief analyst at Ingo Bank. In his opinion, it may be possible to avoid a recession, while greatly reducing demand due to a slowdown in wage growth and lending volumes.
Real GDP growth would have slowed down anyway at any key rate, Elvira Nabiullina emphasized. The only question is whether this slowdown occurs with accelerating price increases and the unwinding of the inflationary spiral, or whether the economy returns to a steady growth trajectory with decreasing inflation. The second allows companies to control their costs, citizens to save money, and interest rates to return to more moderate levels, she explained.
The head of the Central Bank added that, all other things being equal, without changing VAT, it would have been necessary to keep high rates in the economy even longer.
The concept of "hypothermia" of the economy (which, according to Elvira Nabiullina, needs to be avoided now) can be defined as a situation where GDP is either declining or growing at a pace significantly lower than potentially possible, said Alexey Rodin from Rodin.Capital. This situation is influenced by the general slowdown in the global economy and, as a result, a possible decrease in demand for Russian exports, a decrease in the population and a shortage of labor. And also — "expensive money" because of the high key rate.
All this will lead to a slowdown in economic growth. If we talk about ordinary citizens, they can feel it in a slower increase in income. However, it is still premature to make such negative forecasts, and the probability of such a scenario does not exceed 20-25%, the expert concluded.
At the same time, inflation in the country remains at a level significantly higher than the target, and the Central Bank's forecast for next year has just been slightly worsened, Boris Kopeikin recalled. The Bank of Russia expects it to reach 6.5–7% in 2025. It will fall to the target level of 4% in the second half of 2026.
However, according to Sergey Zaversky, achieving this goal in 2026 and even in 2027 looks unlikely. Supply-side constraints make inflation very sensitive to the influence of external factors, he explained.
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