Statistical Analysis of the Russian Credit Card Market

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper is devoted to the influence of various factors on the economic development of the Russian credit card market. Its relevance is primarily due to the increasing role of lending to individuals across the country&rsquo;s economy. The need of this study is also determined by Russia being behind many other countries by the ratio of retail loans to GDP and existence of a huge growth potential. The aim of this paper was to study the state of the credit card market in Russia from 2008 to 2013, make the forecast for 2014 and evaluate the impact of economic factors. Objectives that have been set are: to analyze the dynamics of the largest market&rsquo;s participants; consider the simplicity of application for the credit card and ease of use as a growth factor; to analyze the impact of the development of electronic payment systems and e-commerce; to analyze time series of the number of issued credit cards from 2008 to 2013 with the construction of adaptive model and forecast for 2014; to identify economic factors that have a significant impact on the market and carry out a regression analysis. Empirical basis for the study was derived from statistical reports of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Federal State Statistic Service, Institute for Complex Strategic Studies and Russian banks. Software packages SPSS and EViews were used to build statistical models.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The main results obtained were as follows. Issue of credit cards increased in 2013 by almost 30%, - it is a fairly high rate, but still lower than a year earlier (when it was almost 50%). Building the forecast using adaptive Holt&rsquo;s model confirmed slowing growth - it will be about 19% in 2014.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Also, five economic factors were identified that influence on the issue of credit cards. Two of them have a positive correlation (retail trade turnover and inflation rate) and three &ndash; negative correlation (average income per capita, exports of goods and unemployment rate). Along with this, it was found that exports of goods and inflation rate affect the issue of credit cards with the lag of one year.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The paper has high practical application because conducted analysis allows making forecasts and identifying factors with the greatest impact on the formation of the credit card market in Russia.</p>