Magic of «plastic»: how russians take possession of the bank cards

Abstract

The article presents results of a sociological research devoted to studying process of formation and development of the Russian market of electronic money. The aim of this work is to identify factors that form specific practices of use bank cards. On the one hand the relevance of the subject is determined by the rapid growth of cashless forms of payment in Russia, and on the other hand, the unwillingness to refuse to «real» money in everyday life of the Russian citizens. Therefore it is important to upgrade card usage experience of the «ordinary» customers of the banks. A series of semi-structured interviews allowed us to bring out the incentives and motivation of the individuals in the transition to a non-cash financial transactions; identify features of learning processes of using cards; elicit barriers to transition to electronic forms of payment, as well as factors contributing to the expansion of the circle of used operations. There is classification of the main groups of card holders with their key socio-demographic characteristics. This article will be useful for sociologists and marketers.