Cashless payments on the rise: payment cards report results of first three quarters

The number of cards used to carry out at least one transaction in the first nine months of the year was up 15% on the past year to a total of 174 million cards, the Bank of Russia's statistical data show.

The data also bear out continued growth in cards’ popularity as a payment method among Russian consumers. This is further suggested by a decline in the mean card transaction amount: 847 rubles as of this October, whereas it totalled 891 rubles one year prior.

Furthermore, growth in card-to-card transfers was equally vigorous. Despite the modest share of this segment in the total number of transactions at 13%, aggregate transaction amounts are rapidly mounting to reach 19.2 trillion rubles as of end-September, which is already above the total figure for the entirety of 2017.