Readiness of Moscow residents for financial relations in the format of sharing economy

Recently, several trends have been observed that influence behavior of the population in the financial sphere. On the one hand, the burden of financing vital needs (medical care, housing, provision in old age) is increasingly shifting onto the shoulders of the citizens themselves, forcing them to think about additional sources of income. On the other hand, savings in rubles are being devalued by inflation, and the usual forms of storage are becoming less accessible or reliable — real estate is becoming more expensive, and a number of restrictions are imposed on foreign currency. Raising the key rate by the RF Central Bank, on the one hand, leads to such an influx of depositors tempted by high interest rates on deposits that rumors arise about a possible «freezing» of deposits, and on the other hand, it makes bank loans virtually inaccessible to citizens and small businesses. Thus, there is a number of problems faced by both those who need funds and those who strive to preserve or increase their savings. In the modern world, one of the ways to connect these two groups of interests is crowdlending — collective lending using digital platforms. In Russia, this segment of the sharing economy appeared in the early 2010s, however, despite the presence of objective prerequisites, the pace of its development remains low, especially in comparison with developed countries. The presented results of a sociological study characterize the attitude of Moscow residents to participation in crowdlending. Although a significant part of Muscovites with savings assesses the current opportunities for preserving and increasing them as insufficient, they are divided in half in terms of their willingness to participate in crowdlending. Unwillingness is associated with distrust of borrowers, platform organizers and the law enforcement system. Those who express willingness are attracted to crowdlending by independence of choosing investment projects, technological innovations, higher profitability, as well as the desire to do something common to all, to be involved in the development of other people and projects.

population, Moscow, business, sharing economy, financial behavior, savings, investments, lending, crowd finance, crowd lending