Citizens' Debt Load in the Russian Federation: Causes and Solutions

Nowadays, credit is a popular banking instrument among the population, which allows one to purchase a product or service without currently having the required amount of money. However, not every borrower can subsequently cope with debt obligations, which leads to an increase in the level of debt and, as a consequence, the number of bankruptcies among citizens of the Russian Federation. The main aim of the research is to study the main reasons for the current debt burden of individuals in the Russian lending market and to offer recommendations to state and regional authorities and the Bank of Russia to reduce this indicator. Machine learning methods will be used to study debt levels: clustering and linear regression for a regional study, as well as logistic regression to build a credit scoring model. The results of the analysis are recommendations that can be directed both to citizens who are already in a “debt trap” and to potential borrowers who are just planning to take out a loan.