OREANDA-NEWS  The number of bank cards in Russia in 2022 increased by a record 18% and reached 389.6 million. Experts noted that after the departure of Visa and Mastercard, Russians opened new Mir and UnionPay cards and started cards in non-sanctioned banks.

By the end of 2022, Russian banks issued about 389.6 million cards for individuals, RBC reported, citing statistics from the Bank of Russia. During the year, the number of cards increased by 18%, which was a record increase since 2014, when the Central Bank began to count data in a new format, the newspaper notes.

According to the results of the fourth quarter of 2022, 252.6 million cards were active (those for which at least one operation was carried out in three months).

In 2022, individuals with the help of cards made transactions totaling 149.7 trillion rubles, which is 15.9% more than in 2021. Non-cash payments were made for 46.8 trillion rubles, 73.3 trillion rubles were sent by users to each other. In the form of cash, about 29.5 trillion rubles were withdrawn from cards over the year, which is only 5.6% more than the results of 2021, despite a sharp surge in demand for cash at the beginning of the "military special operation"* in Ukraine in February and the announcement of partial mobilization in September.