Cashless society: Russia outpaces Europe in cash-free transactions growth

Russia has enjoyed “phenomenal” growth of cashless payments in eight years, outpacing other European countries, as the amount of transactions soared 30-fold from 2010 to 2018, according to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Total revenues from cashless transactions on the European market will grow 5.9 percent until 2028, the BCG forecasts, noting that in Eastern Europe the figure will stand at 7.4 percent. Russia is the main driver for growth in the region, the group noted in its report seen by RBC business outlet.

The volume of cash-free transactions in Russia rose on average by 22.1 percent, while the payments per person jumped from 5.8 to 172 or nearly 30 percent from 2010 to 2018. “Russia has overtaken all European countries on this indicator, including the leaders, which showed two and three-fold growth over the same period,” said Max Hauser, who leads BCG’s Technology Advantage practice in CIS in Russia.

Such a surge is the result of three factors, cheap retail finance, high market concentration, and huge investment in technology, the consulting firm explained. BCG believes that Russian consumers managed to leapfrog the traditional development of payment systems, as the country is also Europe’s largest market for e-wallet transactions and the global leader for secured tokenized transactions.

Although growth is expected to cool to 11.8 percent in the next ten years, Russia will still outperform the other 58 countries considered in the research, according to the report.

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