More than one-third of Russians are paying their children for academic success and household chores.

Only 2% of Russians consider themselves financially literate. One in 10 people signs contracts without reading them. Almost half of all depositors do not understand what state insurance of private savings means. One third of the population can manage their individual budget, but do not know their way around the financial services market.

Investment banks tend to give fairly accurate advice to stock market participants – particularly when it comes to stock in industries such as metallurgy, mechanical engineering, transport and construction, according to the paper 'Analysis of Conflicts and Determinants of Accuracy of Forecasts in Russian Financial Analysts’ Recommendations', authored by a group of researchers of the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences.

Mortgage borrowers who have unconfirmed income turn out to be unable to repay the loan less often than public officials, whose income consists of their official salary only. The probability of loan default is also considerably influenced by the cost of the loan. These were the findings of a study conducted by Alexander Karminsky, HSE Professor, and Agata Lozinskaya, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE campus in Perm.

The ability to foresee stock market trends and the potential performance of specific financial instruments is key to a stock trader’s success. Yet studies show that both traders and financial analysts often make mistakes. Lyudmila Egorova, Junior Research Fellow of the HSE International Laboratory of Decision Choice and Analysis, applied mathematical methods to calculate which strategies can help brokers make a profit and avoid bankruptcy.

While helping build consumer trust in credit institutions, deposit insurance can prompt bankers to engage in risky and opportunistic behaviour; larger banks tend to be more cautious and do a better job managing troubled assets, according to Natalia Gorelaya, Associate Professor at the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences’ Department of Finance.

The average Russian family lives on their salaries and pensions and only takes loans in exceptional cases. The vast majority of Russians are in fact millionaires, since almost every family owns their residence, while a third of all households also own other property, usually a 'dacha', i.e. a summer house. Thus, the combined value of assets owned by a typical Russian family exceeds that of many Europeans, according to the Russian Survey of Consumer Finance

Almost two-thirds of Russians use financial services. With this, however, the public’s level of financial literacy is low overall, and there is no convincing evidence that people are interested in improving this. This is largely due to the fact that the information presently available on financial services is complex and difficult to understand, according to experts tasked by the Russian Finance Ministry to conduct the first base survey on the financial literacy level and competence of the Russian public

When people have a choice, they can either rely on their own information or on that received from those around them. The more emotional an individual's relationship with their own data, the higher the likelihood that, when making a decision, they will be led by that rather than by other people's opinions. This also applies to investors' activity on the financial markets – as research by HSE Psychology Faculty Dean Vasily Klyucharev, and researchers from the University of Basel Rafael Huber and Jörg Rieskamp

The performance of Russia's non-state pension funds has been lower than in OECD countries, primarily due to a legal ban on investing these funds in high-yield, high-risk assets, according to a study by Alexander Nepp, Polina Kryuchkova, and Alexander Semin

Despite its thriving banking sector, Russia's industrial production remains stagnant, as financial institutions are failing to support development in the real sector. Vassilisa Makarova, Associate Professor at the HSE's Department of Financial Markets and Financial Management (Faculty of Economics, St. Petersburg), and Andrei Krylov, postgraduate student at St. Petersburg State University of Economics, examined the controversial relationship between Russian banks and industry

Most Russian banks do not skimp on risk management costs. The only exception are aggressive retail lenders too fixated on cost-cutting, said Mikhail Mamonov at the HSE's XV April Conference