Cash has returned to wallets
Russians have started withdrawing more cash due to mobile internet shutdowns. The Central Bank recorded this trend in the first two months of summer. The regulator's commentary says that individuals and companies withdrew 200 billion rubles from banks in June and July. This is approximately twice as much as in May. In recent months, residents of Russian regions have repeatedly complained about mobile internet shutdowns due to the threat of drones.
Now citizens are getting used to carrying large amounts of cash, especially since problems have also arisen with ATMs, says financial market expert Andrei Barkhota: "Individuals have faced serious restrictions in terms of conducting transactions both in non-cash form - payments and transfers - and in the form of cash transactions, including cash withdrawals. This has caused a change in their payment and consumer behavior. Because many trade and service enterprises, which have become routine for Russians, refuse not only to conduct transactions by cards, even the QR code does not work, because this form of payment requires a stable mobile application. Therefore, the demand for cash is growing.
This is caused by interruptions in the Internet, the implementation of operational risks in payments and transfers, the unavailability of mobile banking and other forms of payment, including alternative ones. And, of course, there is a model of demand for money, which depends on the success of a visit to an ATM. If you have one or two unsuccessful cases, for example, an ATM does not work or transactions do not go through, the volume of cash withdrawn doubles or triples. Russians, of course, have already become accustomed to using cash in wide circulation. If earlier the average amount kept in banknotes amounted to an average of two days' expenses, now Russians are forced to have much more cash in reserve.
Before this, there were costs associated with the fact that when withdrawing money from an account, you lose interest income; if you don’t pay with a card, you lose cashback. Now, on the wave of banks going to cancel it altogether, and interest accrual on the balance of a current account also does not always occur, Russians do not sacrifice anything by withdrawing a large amount of cash.”
The Central Bank named changes in legislation concerning payment monitoring as another reason for the increase in demand for cash. This is probably due to the tightening of control over transfers since the beginning of summer. In June and July, Russians began to encounter more frequent card blocking for transactions that banks consider suspicious.
Pavel Samiev, CEO of the analytical agency “BusinessDrom,” doubts that the demand for cash has grown because of this. In his opinion, the seasonal factor played a significant role: “Mobile Internet shutdowns to some extent affected the surge in cash withdrawals, but this is still more of a seasonal factor.
Tightening of bank control over transfers also played a role. On the part of clients, fear had a greater impact than the really tough actions of financial institutions. As for communication interruptions, people want to play it safe when withdrawing cash.
I don’t know how significant this will be in the future, whether there will be some kind of reverse effect when everything calms down. In fact, there weren’t that many interruptions.” According to the Central Bank, demand for currency also increased in July — by 53% compared to June. Purchases by the population exceeded 119 billion rubles and were made both on the exchange where the yuan is sold and on the over-the-counter market.
... Uudet laivat uppoavat jo telakalla
