Tatarstan residents take liking for contactless payments: their amount reaches 2 million a day

2 million payments a day

The National Bank of Tatarstan registered a growth in the number of payments and services with bank cards in Tatarstan — it was 179 million in the first quarter, which is by 64% more than in the analogous period last year.

Tatarstan residents paid over 135 billion rubles for commodities and services via bank cards, which is by 39% compared to last year. The average sum of a transaction is 760 rubles.

In general residents of the republic had over 195 million operations with payment cards for 299 billion rubles during the first quarter in general. Their amount increased by 54% compared to the corresponding period in 2019. Up to 2 million transactions on average were made a day.

As of 1 April 2020, over 7,5 million payment cards were issued in Tatarstan.

“We have seen a stable reduction in demand for cash in cash machines”

Banks surveyed by Realnoe Vremya agreed with the National Bank’s data and registered a growth in contactless payments.

• The press service of Ak Bars Bank said their clients had already been paying for service on the Internet:
  
  “This share has risen now, but we think that after the situation with the coronavirus normalises, most of the cashless turnover will return to previous indicators”.
• In VTB bank, turnover of online cards rose by 9% in May compared to April and by 24% compared to the analogous period last year:
  
  “We have seen a stable reduction in demand for cash in cash machines in the last years. The pandemic intensified this tendency. The total turnover in money withdrawal in VTB cash machines went down by 25% in April compared to April 2019,” the bank said and added that the clients used cards more for transactions.
• Alfa Bank stated that the share of cashless payments grew year after year. The bank singled out the coronavirus pandemic — the number of cashless payments rose by 40-50%:
  
  “Numerous online shops, the service of online purchases and the widespread appearance of POS devices to pay for goods and services favour it. We will also note that many residents evaluated the convenience of online purchase and online delivery: it is safe, often cheaper and notably saves time,” Realnoe Vremya was told in the bank.
• Energobank also sees a rise in the number of cashless payments:
  
  “Nowadays cashless turnover is gradually driving out cash settlements. The convenience of payments and constant access to money plays a key role today. There are bank cards and online banking service for this purpose. Energobank has increased the total amount of cashless transactions by 5% over the year.”

President of Bank of Kazan Alfat Zamaliyev said that without doubt the share of cashless transactions stably grew.

“We will note that the development level of remote service channels also influences the amount of payments. Bank in general pay a lot of attention now to develop cards, and Bank of Kazan isn’t an exception, as more consumers pay for purchases with cards, and this tendency will just intensify in the short term,” he said.