OREANDA-NEWS According to the results of the third quarter, the total volume of microloans in Russia increased by 18.2 percent compared to the same period last year, to 348.1 billion rubles. Izvestia writes about this with reference to the largest association of participants in the microfinance market SRO "MiR".

The increased interest of Russians in microloans is also evidenced by a significant increase in the number of customers over the same period — by 2.7 million people, up to 19.9 million. The association believes that such dynamics is explained by the growing popularity of payday loans compared to bank loans.

At the same time, the rate of micro-credit recruitment is decreasing. If in the second quarter the growth was 6.4 percent, then in the third — 5.5 percent. The trend may be related to the decisions of the Central Bank, which since July has limited the maximum rate on such a loan to 0.8 percent per day and 292 percent per year, and also set the maximum amount of payments at 130 percent. The data relate to the participants of the SRO "MiR", which occupy 85 percent of the market.

Andrey Ponomarev, CEO of the Webbankir online financial platform, pointed out that the volume of loans in his company increased by 42 percent in annual terms and demand remains high. In his opinion, these circumstances are influenced by people's habit of a certain behavior model and weak growth in real incomes, which does not keep up with inflation.