OREANDA-NEWS. Plastic cards will become a rarity by 2025. This was stated by the first deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank Alexander Vedyakhin.

Virtual cards are replacing traditional plastic cards, and payments via smartphones are gaining popularity. "About 15% of customers who remotely activated the card simply do not take the" plastic "from our branches. That is, they ordered the card, received it in their smartphone, and they do not need the" plastic "in principle," Vedyakhin explained at the 15th International payment conference.

The pandemic has sharply increased the demand for bank digital cards that can be opened and extended without the obligation to receive physical "plastic". The demand for digital cards has doubled since the beginning of 2020. According to the latest data from the Bank of Russia, the number of "plastic" used by Russians has dropped record-breaking over the past five years.

"By 2025, it will already be a certain rarity. It will not be needed for sure," Vedyakhin noted. For example, in Sberbank already 10% of all opened cards are digital, "without physical plastic". The change took place in 1.5 years. Sberbank was one of the first to issue a digital debit card, and in 2019, a digital credit card.

Sberbank, the largest in the country, plans to issue in digital format half of all issued cards by the end of 2023. VTB, the second largest bank, by this time intends to issue in digital format up to 40% of all its cards.