The Russian consumer credit landscape, with Igor Propopenko (Experian)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2021
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I've always been interested in emerging markets, which early in my career meant the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India, and China (and, yes, South Africa, but I've always felt we squeezed ourselves a little uncomfortably into that one.
But I digress, my main point is that today it seems that we're hearing from Brazil (with Nubank) and India and China (with a bag full of unicorns each). But Russia, I think after a few fingers got burnt on failed entries earlier in the century, seems to have slipped into the background.
To address this, and just because I've always been fascinated by the country, I speak to Experian Russia's Igor Propopenko. We chat about the current consumer credit landscape, about the growth that has shaped the market as it is today, and about the trends likely to shape its next twenty years.
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A full written transcript with timestamps can be found on HowtoLendMoneytoStrangers.Show
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Also, in terms of data, data without analytics is just waste of time and money. |
| 0:18.0 | After reading the first draft of our undergraduate thesis, our advisor said we didn't need to be so |
| 0:23.6 | stayed with the title, so we changed it to Where's Wally Investing Now, which in hindsight was |
| 0:30.1 | probably pushing a little too far in the opposite direction. But it was about investing in emerging |
| 0:34.9 | markets, something I've always been interested in. So in 2010, when I was living in Copenhagen and |
| 0:41.0 | working as a consultant in the Nordic region, I jumped at the chance to pick up on a one-week project |
| 0:46.4 | with our Moscow office, flying out on a Friday evening to give myself a little sightseeing time. |
| 0:51.6 | The twist was, I needed to apply for my visa by the end of the next day in order to get a process |
| 0:58.0 | in time, and to do that, I needed a hotel confirmation. My colleagues were all staying centrally, |
| 1:04.1 | but I didn't have time to get the corporate wheels turning, so I had to make my own booking, |
| 1:09.2 | and the only hotel replying at that hour was on the edge of Moscow's Alta Ring Road. |
| 1:14.4 | To get to Red Square on the Saturday morning then, I needed to take the number seven metro line in. |
| 1:19.0 | This could have been tricky, given my lack of Cyrillic comprehension, but the station next to mine |
| 1:25.2 | had a number in its name, so while this is a story about getting lost in translation, it's thankfully |
| 1:30.8 | not a story about getting lost. Instead, what happened is that at every station along the way, |
| 1:35.9 | more and more military personnel boarded the train. I tried to remain open-minded, but when I surfaced |
| 1:41.3 | and found the streets filling with banner-waving crowds, I figured this might not be the best day |
| 1:45.8 | to be strolling around with an ice cream in hand. But I still wanted to see St. Basil's in the |
| 1:50.8 | like. So I spent my Saturday doing the most secure-tours walk of the city imaginable, |
| 1:55.9 | taking the long way around every crowd or clump of soldiers I came across. And that plan worked |
| 2:00.9 | in a way. I got back to my hotel that night tired, but happy to have ticked off all the big signs, |
| 2:06.5 | and when I did so, I flopped onto my bed and turned the TV to CNN, the One English Channel on the |
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