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In half of Russian cities, over 60% of payments for goods and services are cashless
A year ago, as few as 28 regions were able to exceed this threshold. Such data are provided in a joint study of cashless consumer spending in Russia prepared by the SberIndex laboratory and the ChekIndex analytical resource.
In the country as a whole, the share of cashless payments of Russians in the total volume of spending operations in the second quarter amounted to 61.6% compared to 58% a year earlier. The top spots in the rating of most cashless regions are held by the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (75.2%), the Republic of Sakha (70.9%) and the Republic of Karelia (70.4%). Among cities, Yakutsk (72%), Syktyvkar (71.5%) and Severodvinsk (71.3%) became champions in cashless payments.
The fast development of cashless sales involves the growing number of regions in the North Caucasian Federal District: the Chechen Republic entered the top 10 regions in terms of growth in the penetration of cashless payments (by 5.2 p.p. within a year).
In Q2, the catering industry became the leader in cashless payments, with 80% of the turnover in restaurants and 74% of the turnover in cafes and canteens being cashless. Analysts attribute this to the competition for customers and the desire to offer visitors the most convenient payment methods. Large food retail chains, in turn, are energetically developing e-commerce, thus ensuring a higher level of cashless spending. Local convenience stores are also in trend: the share of cashless payments there already accounts for 60%. At the same time, citizens still actively pay in cash in the DIY and electronic appliances segments