OREANDA-NEWS By the end of 2024, the volume of cash in Russia will amount to 18.44 trillion rubles, which is 116.9 billion more than a year earlier. RBC writes about this with reference to the statistics of the Central Bank and its own calculations.

Based on these figures, cash growth will be only 0.6 percent, which will be the lowest level since 2015. Taking into account inflation and the depreciation of the ruble, the purchasing power of this money has decreased significantly.

In 2023, the cash supply in Russia increased by 1.97 trillion rubles, and in 2022 — by 2.28 trillion. Statistics take into account the remaining funds in the cash registers of commercial banks, but the bulk of the cash is in the hands of Russians, so the dynamics indicate a decrease in interest in its use among the population.

Sofia Donets, chief economist at T-Investments, noted that the small increase in cash in 2024 is more of a technical nature, because the indicator has been falling for 11 months. Egor Susin, Managing Director of Gazprombank Private Banking, pointed out that in the first ten months of the year, a decrease of 2.4 percent was recorded.

According to him, the main reason was high bank deposit rates, which force them to keep funds on deposits. The share of non-cash payments is also steadily growing, which is a trend in recent years. Donets added that in the last five years there have been several episodes when Russians have shown interest in accumulating cash, and in 2024 this money has gone into the banking system.

Experts do not expect the flow of cash to banks to continue, because everyone who wanted to deposit funds on high-interest deposits has already done so. Moreover, the reverse process is also possible if the key rate, followed by deposit rates, begin to decline.

Earlier, Anatoly Aksakov, head of the State Duma Committee on the financial market, assured that the authorities do not plan to take steps aimed at ousting the ruble in cash from circulation and replacing it with a digital equivalent.