Plastic withdrawal: credit card issuance in Russia has halved in a year
By the end of May, banks issued 60% fewer credit cards to Russians than a year earlier. This follows from the data of the United Credit Bureau (OKB), which is available to Izvestia. Banks approve half the credit limits for plastic and reduce them for existing customers. The situation is related to the tightening of Central Bank regulation and the high key interest rate. In addition, market participants have suffered from the growth of financial literacy, because people try to use credit cards only during the grace period — in this case, money is given to people virtually without interest. When the conditions for "plastic" can be mitigated — in the Izvestia material.
How easy is it to get a credit card
In May, banks issued slightly more than a million credit cards to Russians, which is 60% less than a year earlier, according to OKB data. The limits were also approved twice as much — their total volume at the end of the month amounted to 128 billion rubles. On average, Russians are given credit cards with a maximum debt of 127 thousand rubles.
The sharp drop in indicators compared to 2024 is a steady trend that has been observed since the beginning of the year. In the first five months of 2025, the number of credit cards issued also halved compared to the same period last year.
"Under conditions of strict regulation by the Central Bank, banks are much less likely to approve new credit card limits," explained Egor Lopatin, head of the financial Institutions Ratings group at the NKR Agency.
In 2024, the Central Bank forced banks to allocate reserves even for unused credit limits, OKB CEO Mikhail Aleksin recalled. Previously, the regulatory capital (the bank's financial cushion) was used only for new plastic loans, but now credit institutions have to allocate funds even for unspent but approved limits.
Such changes led to another trend — by the beginning of the first half of 2025, only 550 thousand customers resumed using credit cards after a break. This is half as much as expected, the Design Bureau noted. That is, banks were already actively closing unused credit limits in order to reduce regulatory pressure.
Banks are also in no hurry to issue new credit cards due to the Central Bank's restrictions on providing loans to borrowers who spend more than half of their income on debt servicing, said Anna Zemlyanova, chief analyst at Sovcombank. Given the high key interest rate (it was recently reduced, but only to 20%), the market is forced to pay even more attention to the debt burden of its clients.
If a client with an income of 100 thousand rubles wants to take out a car loan with a monthly payment of 40 thousand rubles, but he has a credit card (albeit unused) with a limit of at least 10 thousand rubles, he is guaranteed to face a refusal on the application. Due to the regulation of the Central Bank, it is extremely unprofitable for banks to issue loans to such borrowers. However, in this situation, only plastic hinders market participants — they solve the problem by reducing cards in order to preserve the opportunity to issue larger loans to Russians.
Banks also continued to actively worsen credit card conditions and "cut" limits for customers during the entire five months of 2025, Izvestia wrote. Many clients complained that the maximum amount of debt on their "plastic" was reduced many times — there were cases when it decreased by 20 times.
Why banks worsen credit card conditions
The bank issues all borrowed funds at the expense of money from the population and businesses attracted to deposits. Deposit rates have exceeded 20% for a long time (although they have now dropped to 18%), so loan yields should be above this level. At the same time, most of the clients use credit cards only during the grace period - in this case, the money for the client is, in fact, free for 3-5 months, said Egor Lopatin from the NKR.
— So, receiving market financing at 20% per annum, banks are forced to provide card loans at 0%, — explained economist Andrey Barkhota.
At the same time, market participants openly declare that they have become tougher towards customers who use credit cards, only while the interest-free period is underway. This was reported by Stanislav Tyves, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Uralsib. Some of them may block spending operations and lower the limits on which the maximum amount of debt depended.
In general, banks are looking at the credit card segment more conservatively, slowing down the issuance of both new and existing customers, Andrei Barkhota said. They are now striving to maximize the profitability of their products by maintaining the quality of their portfolios and not accumulating risks.
This is especially important because the quality of loan servicing has deteriorated in 2025, said Mikhail Aleksin from OKB. According to him, credit risks have been accumulating over the past year and right now they have reached their peak. This has already resulted in an almost twofold increase in credit card delinquencies.
That is why the tightening of the Central Bank's requirements for this market segment is absolutely appropriate, says Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Finance Global. According to her, massive bankruptcies of borrowers, if brought to this point, can destabilize the entire system.
Nevertheless, banks are likely to be able to restore credit card limits and disbursements as the key interest rate decreases, concluded Anna Zemlyanova, chief analyst at Sovcombank. By the end of 2025, the segment may grow by 7%. In the future, when deposits start to become cheaper, market participants will be able to further soften their policies and increase the issuance of such cards.
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