PayPal and Data Insight conducted a study and found that online shopping and electronic payments have gone beyond the boundaries of metropolitan areas. At the end of 2014, 40% of new Internet users in the country are people from small towns, villages and rural settlements.
The study confirmed that banking services have already firmly entered the life of Russians - 88% of the surveyed Internet users from small towns have used bank cards. Moreover, according to the results, residents of small Russian cities have limited access to traditional banking services.
So, every fifth respondent does not have an ATM of his bank within walking distance, every tenth - the distance to the nearest ATM is more than 10 km. Nevertheless, those living in such settlements visit bank offices with approximately the same frequency as in megacities - at least twice a month.
Difficulties with offline access to traditional financial instruments prompt residents of small cities to use new ways to pay for goods and services. Many Russians are actively interested in electronic payments and the possibilities of mobile financial solutions: every fourth respondent at least once bought plane or train tickets via the Internet, 40% of smartphone users who have installed their bank applications on gadgets.
In 2015, the share of online shopping and electronic payments continues to grow. 41% of active Internet users from small cities planned in the next 12 months to start buying goods online or to do this more often than before, and 49% were going to start using or use more often online solutions to pay for goods and services.
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