Plastics are entering Asia and Eastern Europe. Credit cards are more and more becoming the primary tool of buying things as well as a helping tool in managing business and personal finances. But until the year 2005 all the consumers in Russian Federation had no other choice but to be content with some small loans that could be taken to buy vehicles or some technical gadgets.

Both financial experts and western observers claim that is at the moment on the irreversible way to build a very competitive credit market.

It is known that so-called credit industry deregulation made credit cards extremely expensive and even debt threatening for all the American clients with average income. Thus, the example teaches creditors in Russia about the possible effects that credit cards can actually have.

Without having a proper credit card education, customers may severely damage their financial situation and spoil the adequate development of the stable credit card market. But, still, there is no use to deny that credit cards are a re al financial future of the state.

State-of-the-art Russia can really boast of doing business with the richest and the largest credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, and MasterCard. If we look at the figures of the year 2004, we'll see that MasterCard had about 740,000 credit cards issued, moreover the majority of applications was offered in Moscow, the capital of Russia.

It is an easy step in the credit card system development in Russia. National banks, for instance Russky Standart together with the foreign banks, for example, Raiffeisen bank, are all very aware of the risky side of the situation.

Such things as credit bureaus or credit history are new to Russians, so it is pretty tough to calculate the risk for a potential creditor with any kind of mathematical precision. It's not an easy matter yet. Moreover, most banks are still keeping their clients' history only to themselves; therefore, it is only more difficult to make estimations about the credit worthiness and risks of potential borrowers.

What is being done for now is just small steps on the tough way to build a credit card system - much like it was in Europe and America with all kinds of credit card offers: point rewards credit cards, no annual fees credit cards lowest APR credit cards, etc.

What is peculiar, though, is that with so weak credit market Russia has actually one of the greatest credit and ID theft rate in the whole world! Once you pull out a plastic to pay at a cafe or restaurant or a hotel, you can have your card's number extremely easily stolen and get some huge charges for fraudulent credit card use.

Fraudsters in Russia have managed to reach out for banking systems in the West, I mean the largest of personal and also credit information are obvious.

If Russia will have a strong credit card market, which is soon going to be rather realistic, it will be essential to fight against the criminals in the country.