By the end of November 2011, Home Credit & Finance Bank’s share of POS express loans market dropped below 25% for the first time since quite a while; the decrease amounted to 3.3% since the beginning of the year 2011, Kommersant reports.

According to Frank Research Group’s findings, the POS lending market’s volume reached 175bn RUR on December 1, 2011. Home Credit & Finance Bank is still the market leader, as it was at the start of last year, but its share has decreased below 25% for the first time since 2009 and amounted to 24.5%.

The bank’s share of the market kept going down throughout the entire year 2011: Frank Research Group reports the figure came to 27.8% on January 1, 2011, so over the course of eleven months the drop was 3.3%. Alfa-Bank’s position looked a bit similar even though it was less noticeable: one of Russia’s top three POS lending banks’ share of the market went from 16.8% at the start of 2011 down to 15.4% by December 1, 2011.