UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 7, 2016. This year, Russians whose income varies between 50,000 and 100,000 RUR a month started applying for bank loans increasingly more often, United Credit Bureau’s press service reports.

This customer segment made up 33% of all the borrowers; a year earlier, the figure stood at as little as 27%. Additionally, the share of loan applicants whose income comes to 100,000 to 200,000 RUR a month also rose from 6% to 8% in the course of one year. The share of applicants with the monthly income of over 200,000 RUR also went up slightly.

The share of loan applicants whose monthly income comes to less than 50,000 RUR a month is still the biggest one, even though figures dropped from 65% in 2015 to 57% in 2016. The decline was most noticeable among the borrowers whose monthly income varies between 15,000 and 30,000 RUR a month. This customer segment amounted to 28% of all the loan applicants last year and to slightly under 21% this year.

‘We could see that more people with income above average started applying for bank loans this year. This trend might have to do with two factors. Firstly, people’s overall factual income has been going down, and secondly, the prices of goods and services keep rising, which means people who used to be able to make expensive purchases using their savings or disposable income are now forced to borrow in order to buy something big,’ says the Bureau’s Director-General Daniel Zelensky.