Experts explained how the innovation could affect the domestic car market
The authorities are constantly expanding the possibilities of using maternal capital. Thus, on July 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing it to be used for individual housing construction through the mechanism of escrow accounts. But other initiatives are also being discussed: the State Duma proposed allowing funds to be used to purchase a car. How realistic this is, MK found out from experts.
Let us remind you: from February 1, 2024, maternity capital is 630.4 thousand rubles for the first child and 833 thousand rubles for the second. Russians who have already received a certificate for their first child have the right to an additional payment in the amount of 202.6 thousand rubles if they have another child. According to the Social Fund of the Russian Federation, over the 16-year history of maternity capital payments in our country, 14 million certificates have been issued. Since the beginning of 2024 alone, citizens have issued them 239 thousand times.
Most often, the funds received in this way are spent on improving housing conditions. Since the launch of the program in 2007, 9.1 million families have used the funds to purchase and build housing. 2.1 million parents have used the funds from the certificates to pay for their children's education — kindergartens, schools and other educational services. In addition, Russians are willing to apply for monthly payments from maternity capital for children under 3 years old. 1.14 million families have received such support. In addition to the listed purposes, the law also allows spending maternity capital funds on the parents' funded pension and the purchase of goods and services for the social adaptation of children with disabilities. And now, according to Putin's latest decree, maternity capital funds can be spent on the construction of a residential building under a construction contract using escrow accounts.
There are other initiatives in the pipeline. Thus, the State Duma proposed allowing large families and families with disabled children to purchase a car using maternity capital. The funds for this purpose can be used in parts or in full. It is proposed to buy both a new and a used car. As Olga Lebedinskaya, associate professor of the statistics department of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, pointed out, in St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Oryol, and Novosibirsk regions there is already experience of using regional maternity capital to purchase a car, but only for those families in which a third child was born and the condition of living in the region for a certain period has been met. In Rostov and Tula regions there is no residency requirement, but the opportunity to buy a car using maternity capital is also provided after the birth of the third child. In Yakutia and Kamchatka Krai, the opportunity to buy a car using regional maternity capital appears with the birth of the first child. Now they want to apply this approach at the federal level.
“The idea of using maternal capital to buy a car is correct,” says Alexander Safonov, a professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. “The amount of capital to buy a home is no longer enough, but a car in a family is a very important thing.” Firstly, its presence will expand the employment opportunities for one of the parents for more profitable jobs that are unavailable due to the family’s lack of public transport. Secondly, medical care in rural areas is becoming more accessible. Thirdly, the family receives great opportunities for cultural development and tourism, the scientist emphasized.
The current bill is not the first attempt to allow maternity capital to be spent on buying a car. But previously, such initiatives were rejected due to fears of “cashing out” the certificates after selling the purchased car, and also because one of the parents becomes the owner, which does not always take into account the interests of the child. In addition, it is not clear what will happen to the property if, for example, the car gets into an accident. However, this time legislators tried to take into account almost all the comments. “I only see the risk of losing a car as a result of an accident, but this can be mitigated by compulsory insurance and a restriction on sales for at least 5 years,” noted Nadezhda Shvyreva, chairman of the Rostov Regional Bar Association “Paritet”.
The adoption of the law will affect not only the lives of Russian families, but also the situation in the automobile market, experts point out. After all, it is, in principle, impossible to buy a foreign car with the established amount of maternity capital, and for a Russian-made car you will have to add your own funds. “If this bill is adopted in Russia, consumer demand for cars produced within the country will sharply increase,” says Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov. “Against this background, the growth rate of their value will begin to accelerate and, most likely, will exceed the average annual inflation rate in the country. Following domestic cars, prices for foreign cars will gradually begin to rise.” As a result, there is a risk of accelerated rates of price growth in the auto market, the analyst believes.