UrBC, Yekaterinburg, February 6, 2020. The average micro-loan amount issued to a Sverdlovsk Region-based borrower came to RUB 8,383 in the last quarter of 2019 (up 5.1% on one year earlier, when the figure was RUB 7,978), the National Credit History Bureau’s research findings indicate.

In Russia on the whole, the average micro-loan amount rose by 7.7% in QIV’2019. The trend was for the smallest loan segment (under RUB 10,000) to go down, with a 12.5% drop in the last quarter of 2019 against the last quarter of 2018.

‘The increase in the average micro-loan amount has to do with the shrinking smallest loan segment (under RUB 10,000). This shrinking of the most popular ‘payday loan’ segment, in its turn, results from both the Bank of Russia’s regulatory policy and the micro-financing organizations optimizing their business processes. For one, there are increasingly fewer micro-financing organizations willing to offer ‘payday loans’ to new applicants. The existing and trusted customers, however, get approached and issued larger amounts, says Marketing Director at the National Credit History Bureau Alexei Volkov.