Russians Don't Borrow Money From Friends

By: Pravda

Russians prefer to borrow from relatives, but are always willing to lend money to their friends. However, friends do not rush to ask for financial support, unwilling to ruin the friendly relations with money matters. However, respondents of the research center Superjob.ru do not always favor the requests of their relatives who want to borrow significant amounts of money.

The survey revealed that most of Russians go to their relatives for financial favors (27%). Less frequently they go with such requests to their friends (17%). In turn, 8% of Russians prefer not to complicate personal relationships and take bank loans. Russians of ages 35-44 are most likely to take bank loans (16%).

Another 2% of the respondents are borrowing from coworkers and only 1% borrows from their employer. A significant number of respondents (43%) do not take loans at all, assuming that in any situation they must rely only on their own funds. The number of those who prefer to avoid debt is higher among the respondents over age 45 (59%).

As for lending money, Russians are willing to lend money primarily to friends (48%) and only then - to relatives (24%). In this case, younger respondents more likely to lend to friends, while older Russians prefer to lend to their relatives. Every tenth respondent is willing to lend money to a coworker (10%).

How much money are Russians willing to lend? As it turned out, it depends on their relationship with people asking for help. For example, relatives often borrow large sums (over 30 thousand rubles ($1,000)) - 23%, friends - from 1 to 5,000 rubles ($30 to $170) - 22%, colleagues - 1 to 5,000 rubles or less than 1 thousand -28%, analysts of the Intelligence Center Superjob.ru report.

However, many respondents specify that they can lend a substantial amount of money to a coworker only against a receipt. The respondents indicated in the comments that they are willing to help close friends and relatives, even to the detriment of themselves: "I am ready to give my last penny to a true friend," "Whatever they ask for, within reason, of course."

The majority of respondents (70%) provided a negative answer to the question of whether in the past year they borrowed money more frequently: "I try to live within my means," "I borrow even less than I used to." A similar situation is with lending money to others - 77% of respondents reported that last year they did not lend money to others frequently: "No one is asking," "I never lend money. I tell them to go to the bank!"

Russians did go to the bank frequently within the past year, mostly bringing money in, not borrowing.

Throughout the year banks recorded an increase in the number and volume of deposits. In September of this year, the growth of deposits in Russian banks in annual terms amounted to 30.8%, with most of the deposits opened in rubles.

According to a study conducted by Superjob.ru, 13% of respondents have deposits in rubles, dollars, euros or other currencies. The second most popular saving method is Forex games (4%), followed by buying gold and precious metals, as well as investments in real estate (3% each). Gold has broken all records long time ago and has grown to be $1,300 per ounce. Interestingly enough, employed Russians prefer investments in gold twice as often as those who currently do not have a full time permanent job (4% vs. 2%).

Only 2% of Russians prefer investing in mutual funds. It seems that mutual funds are not trusted by Russians, and this distrust was aggravated after the loss of mutual funds in 2008.

Every tenth respondent (10%) choses other ways to multiply personal savings. Among them are foreign exchange operations, investments in business projects, and lending money at interest.

More than half of respondents (54%) admitted that in the past 12 months they have not taken any action for the enhancement of their own savings, analysts of Suprejob.ru reported. Some of them said that they simply do not have anything to increase, while others do not know which ways they can increase their capital: "Investment is risky," "At the moment I am considering the best way to do it."

Anastasia Romasheva

Pravda.ru

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