BFC Bulletins Monthly News Digest
Tags Digital Banking Payments Regulation SME
Russia’s banking market has already proven itself to be very dynamic. But with changing regulations, new business models and new innovations coming to market, 2020 promises to be an interesting year for banking in Russia. Here are 7 trends expected to define banking in Russia this year:
- Ecosystems and super-apps – banking ecosystems have become a hot topic in recent years, splitting opinion within the banking community. Those more progressive financial institutions are expected to make waves this year by experimenting with non-banking services and super-app prototypes.
- Retail loan market cooling – the retail loan market is expected to somewhat cool this year as participants finally adapt to new rules for regulating the maximum debt burden.
- Mass investments – lower deposit rates and the democratization of brokerage services have created the prerequisites for a boom in the mass investment market.
- Small business lending – the need for small business loans is huge, and their availability is very small. This large potential along with new regulations is expected to push small business lending growth to 20% or more this year.
- Credit card price competition – competition in the credit card market is very high and continues to intensify. It is likely that one financial institution could offer a low rate to stand out from the competition, starting a price war for credit cards.
- Moving away from physical plastic cards – payment by phone has taken root in Russia and is growing. In 2020, financial institutions will actively offer their customers virtual cards, without a any physical medium.
- Offensive insurance – plans to introduce new credit insurance regulation standards have been postponed several times. But measures to limit the income of financial institutions from insurance products are expected to be eliminated in 2020.
