Installment Services (BNPL) in Russia

Main article: Lending in Russia

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2024: The volume of the Russian installment services market grew 1.6 times and reached ₽300 billion

The Shares service from T-Bank recorded an increase in the volume of the BNPL services market (buy now, pay later - "buy now, pay later") in Russia from ₽180 billion to ₽300 billion in 2024. The data was published in mid-January 2025.

According to Vedomosti, the main driver of growth was the increase in the number of partner stores. Only at the service "Shares" their number increased by 131% per year. The Podeli service from Alfa-Bank has become available in more than 70 thousand online stores and 10 thousand retail outlets.

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Фото: Freepik

According to Data Insight, the e-commerce market in Russia grew by 36% to ₽10,7 trillion in 2024. Marketplaces played an important role in the development of BNPL services, in particular, Wildberries launched its own service "Parts" in April 2024.

Inna Soldatenkova, head of expert analytics at Банки.ру, notes the impact of inflation and a high key rate on market growth, which led to a decrease in the availability of loans and an increase in the attractiveness of BNPL services.

Ivan Uklein, Senior Director for Banking Ratings at Expert RA, attributes the market growth to an increase in credit activity of the largest Russian marketplaces. Frank RG forecasts that the BNPL segment's share of e-commerce was 1.8% by the end of 2023.

In August 2024, the State Duma introduced a bill "On activities to provide an installment service," proposing to oblige services to transfer user data to credit bureaus when debt exceeds ₽15 thousand.

In 2025, the market size of BNPL services can reach ₽400 billion. Experts expect growth to continue until regulation is introduced, noting that the popularity of this financial product is unlikely to decline sharply even after the adoption of new rules.

According to a survey by Romir, 88% of small and medium-sized businesses noted the positive impact of BNPL services on sales, which creates the prerequisites for further expansion of the partner network.^[1]

2023: The volume of the Russian installment services market for the year increased to 180 billion rubles

At the end of 2023, the volume of the Russian installment services market reached 180 billion rubles. This is one of the fastest growing segments of the domestic financial industry, as stated in the materials released in June 2024.

We are talking about the sphere of BNPL - Buy Now Pay Later (buy now, pay later): these are payment services for purchases, mainly small, in parts. This model allows you to divide the payment amount into four equal parts, with transactions every two weeks. To issue a BNPL, you only need a phone number to which the confirmation code will come at the time of payment.

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Фото: Freepik.com

According to the Kommersant newspaper, the first BNPL services appeared in Russia in 2021 - Dolami from Tinkoff Bank and Split from Yandex. Then they were joined by Sberbank (Pay in Parts), Alfa Bank (Podeli), CFT (PayStep), Ozon ( Ozon Installments). The fintech group Denum, founded by IFC MigCredit and MCC Papa Finance, announced its intention to enter this market.

According to Frank RG, in 2022, the share of purchases using BNPL services in Russia was no more than 1% of the e-commerce market. At the end of 2023, this figure reached 1.5%, that is, increased by one and a half times. The value is projected to be approximately 1.8% by the end of 2024.

As of the end of 2023, according to Yandex, only 6% of Russians have used BNPL at least once: this means that "there is a lot of space for competition in the market." Sergey Shirokov, director of the Borrow and Save department of Sberbank, says that the number of providers in the area under consideration will grow. According to analysts, regulation can have a significant impact on the development of the market: stricter controls can slow its growth. The segment may also be pressured by a decline in consumer spending.^[2]

2022: 10-fold growth in installment services market

In 2022, the total turnover in the BNPL segment (buy now, pay later - "buy now, pay later," payment for purchases in parts) in Russia reached several tens of billions of rubles, market participants told Kommersant in January 2023. According to them, in comparison with 2021, installments showed tenfold growth.

The total volume of purchases with the Shares service (owned by Tinkoff) since its launch in April 2021 has exceeded 10 billion rubles, the Tinkoff press service told the newspaper.

The turnover of installment services in Russia for the year increased 10 times

In addition to Tinkoff, there are also similar services, for example, for, Sberbank, "," Alfa-BankYandex"Center for Financial Technologies" and. Ozon The dynamics of installment services differs from the situation in the stagnant consumer lending market, a source in the Kommersant financial market said. The growth and decline in indicators in this area in 2022 is due to the fact that new players entered the market, technology was debugged, he said. Sberbank

By January 2023, the Central Bank was already interested in BNPL products, since they act as an analogue of bank lending. The regulator is discussing plans to bring together consumer lending legislation and legislation regulating installment services.

This means the introduction of requirements for informing consumers and the content of the contract, limiting the amount of penalties for delay, the buyer's ability to prohibit the assignment of claims. The client should have the opportunity during the "cooling period" to refuse installments along with the return of goods, according to the Central Bank.

Regulation would ensure adequate weighting of such loans on risk, as well as establish uniform standards for working with them, experts interviewed by the newspaper note. The lack of regulation can lead to a relatively large information asymmetry, when information about the properties of a credit product will not be disclosed in accordance with the requirements applied to standard consumer loans, said ACRE Valery Piven, head of the rating group of financial institutions.^[3]

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