Central Bank of the Russian Federation

06/09/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/10/2021 08:35

Russia’s financial infrastructure: balance of online and offline services

In late 2020, there were more than 5 million offices of financial institutions, ATMs, payment terminals, post offices with banking services, stores with cash-out services, and other outlets in Russia, according to the analytical report of the Bank of Russia.

Households and businesses are not yet ready to completely terminate their in-person servicing by financial institutions. As noted in the report, the Internet coverage is not yet available for the whole country (especially for remote, sparsely populated, and hard-to-reach territories), the channels of remote financial services are not always adapted for the needs of all groups of the population (including the disabled and senior persons), and some consumers, for various reasons, cannot or are not ready to use remote options.

Recently, the special focus of the Bank of Russia's attention has been on the advancement of the so-called 'light' formats of banking services by credit institutions. By the end of 2020, banking transactions were offered in 35.9 thousand post offices, or 95% of their total number, with access to the Internet. The cash-out service was available in almost 4.5 thousand stores.

The Bank of Russia fosters the trend to expand the range of financial services offered in these formats, and to improve their qualities. Seeing possibilities for the further development of remote channels, the regulator deems it important for this process to be well balanced.

Preview photo: Dmitriy Kandinskiy / Shutterstock / Fotodom