‘The new rules mean that a customer must, in fact, offer a loan of sorts to a car showroom in return for the automobile - but only after quite a long period of time. However, unlike with a real loan, a customer cannot possibly hope to get any interest, which means he or she is the one who’ll have to take all the risks related to price fluctuations and flexible exchange rates,’ Unicom Partner Universal Investment Company’s Asset Management Director Vitaliy Kalugin said to UrBC.


Mr. Kalugin referred to the fact that in Yekaterinburg, a customer might now have to wait for up to a year before they can have their car, while the new rules state that they must make a down payment (up to 20% of the cost of the car or even more than that). The payments would normally depend on current prices and exchange rates, so in case these go up by the time the car arrives, the final price of the automobile will rise as well. A customer is not forced to buy the car, though.


‘Showrooms can only afford to act like this if the demand is a lot greater than the supply,’ Mr. Kalugin added.