UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 26, 2018. Holders of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development’s 120-day-grace-period credit cards have spent RUB 4.5 billion using these cards since the beginning of the year, the bank’s press service reports.

‘Women proved to be the more active card users and made 10.8 million transactions (amounting to RUB 2.5 billion all in all) throughout this year. Yet, even though men used their credit cards less often, they generally spent a greater amount of money per transaction,’ the press service says.

According to the bank’s big data findings, the credit cards are most frequently used at supermarkets (31% of transactions), grocery stores (10.4%), liquor stores (6.6%) and cafes (4.2%). A female credit card holder is 41 years old on average, a male one is 39 years old.

‘The 120-day-grace-period credit card was this year’s lending market’s breakthrough. The impressive number of transactions this card gets used for means our customers have learned to use the options available to them and often use the credit card for everyday shopping such as supermarket purchases and cafes. The credit card is also expected to be the next year’s driving force as well: banks are making every effort to make this card type popular, their offers become ever more affordable to apply for and absolutely free to use,’ says the UBRD Marketing Director Alexei Merzlyakov.

The UBRD introduced its 120-day-grace-period credit card in November 2017; more than 46,000 cards have been issued since. The card became free to use in June 2018, so the number of newly issued cards tripled in the second half of 2018 against the first half of the year. Most of the new applicants are based in Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Tagil, Chelyabinsk, Kirov, and Novouralsk.