Russians Took A Record Amount Of Cash Out Of Banks

Because of the internet outages and the Putin regime's plans.

Russians have accelerated the transition to cash amid ongoing mobile Internet shutdowns and the authorities' plans to tighten control over transfers to bank cards. From April 3 to April 10, citizens withdrew a record amount of 240 billion rubles from their bank accounts since the beginning of the year. As a result, the total amount of cash in circulation for the week rose to 19.85 trillion rubles. This follows from the data of the Bank of Russia, which were studied by "Izvestia". In general, between April 1 and April 17 this year, approximately 470 billion rubles of cash flowed out of credit institutions, calculated on the basis of the regulator's statistics by Alexei Voylukov, MBA professor of business practice in digital finance at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration Alexei Voylukov. By comparison, for the whole of March, the volume of caches in circulation increased by 300 billion rubles.

Centrobank earlier indicated that the increase in demand for cash was mainly due to mobile Internet outages. In the regulator's surveys, Russians noted that they withdraw money in case cashless payment is unavailable. At the same time, in 2025, banks began to block the cards of Russians more often due to the regulator's requirements to strengthen the fight against fraudsters. Also affected by the tax increase, after which small businesses began to offer more frequent discounts to customers for cash payments. In addition, the Ministry of Finance announced plans to give the Federal Tax Service (FTS) the right to monitor transfers to the cards of Russians and require proof of income from those who receive more than 2.4 million rubles a year, or 200 thousand rubles a month.

As a result, some citizens began to perceive non-cash transactions as less predictable, says Voylukov. At the same time, if money does not pass through the banking system, it is much more difficult for the authorities to track its movement, the expert added. At the same time, the government planned to reduce the use of caches as part of whitening the economy, Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov recalled.

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