Twofold increase in cashless transactions: BoR statistics for 2018

Russians still prefer to use bank cards to pay for goods and services. In 2018, such operations accounted for 76% of all card transactions. Meanwhile, according to the Bank of Russia’s statistics, card-to-card transfers continue to grow rapidly, outpacing other card transactions in terms of volume.

Last year's results demonstrate that card-to-card transfers were the second most popular way of using bank cards followed by cash withdrawal transactions (14% and 10% respectively). That said, card-to-card transfers were the absolute leader in terms of transaction volume. Last year, such transfers totalled 27.4 trillion rubles. During the same period, 21 trillion rubles were spent using bank cards to pay for goods and services. Therefore, the total amount of cashless transactions (over 48 trillion rubles) was almost twice as high as the amount of cash withdrawals (26.6 trillion rubles).

Last year, the observed trend in the growth of active cards used to perform at least one operation continued. This figure surged by nearly 22 million and exceeded 180 million units. The share of such cards in the total emission amount was 66%.