Slow on the cards

摘要

Russians may have quickly developed a taste for capitalist essentials, such as cars and designer clothes, but credit cards seem to be taking a while longer to get established. Out of 103 million financial cards in circulation, only 12 million are credit cards and many holders use them like debit cards to get cash out of ATMs rather than buying goods in shops. Russia remains a predominantly cash society and outside of the big cities, such as Moscow and St Petersburg, merchants have resisted accepting cards. But this is changing due to tighter legislation and big promotional activities by the card operators and the banks. "The credit card is a very new product in Russia," says Andrey Korolev, MasterCard's general manager in Russia. "We are heading for one card per capita [140 million] but we are not there yet and the rest of eastern Europe is already above this level. "Our principal competition is from cash [as opposed to rival operators].