From restrictions on acquiring banks are preparing to transfer costs to customers.
the lenders have asked the government not to use administrative regulation to the Commission for payment acceptance (acquiring) as anti-crisis measures. This is stated in the letter of the Association of Russian banks (ADB) in the Cabinet (at the disposal of “Izvestia”).
Restrictions acquiring commissions will lead to losses of the order of 10-15 billion roubles for the entire period of their validity, assessed in the ADB. This business will have to subsidise from other areas, warned the Association.
“the Decline of acquiring commissions will reduce incentives to use non-cash payment methods, since issuing banks will be forced to start collecting money from consumers for issuing and servicing of cards the use of payment applications that access call center. as well As to reduce or cancel the loyalty program. Today these costs are subsidized by interchange fees,” reads the letter. Estimates on how much might appreciate customer service in banks, yet.
the document emphasizes that credit institutions can also be a disadvantage to cover the outlets with a turnover less than 12 million rubles of non-cash payments per year and the costs of providing the terminals will have to be borne by the business.
Russia has a different business model on the market of cashless payments: most services are free for customers, they are subsidised from income from acquiring, has declared “news” Vice President ADB Alexey Volokhov. He noted that with this model in Russia every person has at least two cards. The share of non-cash turnover increased from 25% in 2014 to 65% in 2020.
— If a pensioner or a student in Russia will have to pay for the card about 6 thousand annually in European countries, he would prefer not to refuse non-cash payments, — said Alexei Volokhov.
According to him, while maintaining the restrictions the banks may make some services paid, including the mobile application, because it must be maintained and continuously updated protection. However, the probability of this option is much less than the compensated issue and service of cards, because the application offers a wide range of functions, such as loan processing.
the regulator stressed that the measure is intended to support including small and medium business in the period of the pandemic coronavirus. In press service government “news” said that the details of official correspondence without comment.
despite an overall drop in commissions part of the infrastructure costs may be passed on to the customers, credit organization can reduce the volume of investments in development of technology services, confirmed in the “Discovery”. In Bank believe that the number of projects where sale and maintenance of payment terminals will be shifted onto the shoulders of the merchants, will increase.
When excess regulation, there are always imbalances that lead to restriction of competition and negatively influence the quality of services provided, agreed, and the Director of the Department for the development of debit cards of Bank “home Credit” Yury Koptjaev. He noted that in this case many banks have had to reduce payments to loyalty programs. In fact, costs were shifted from retailers to credit institutions and their customers.
Banks in all segments of the business will tailor their loyalty programs and cashback under the new market conditions, but it is unlikely we are waiting for a significant revision of tariffs for servicing of cards as the main instrument of access to the account, consider in alpha Bank. They added that mobile apps and call centers — is the basic channels of interaction with the client, and their limit seems impossible.
In the ICD agreed that some market participants may go the way of increase of current and the introduction of new commissions. However, in conditions of high competition, the largest banks tend to provide more attractive client application making services free of charge.
limitation of the maximum fee for accepting payment online has played a huge role in the development of online payments and financial technology, said the head of the Association of companies Internet Commerce (AKIT) Artem Sokolov.
— Online-shops pandemic began to develop recurring payments, which allows to store data on the card and not to enter them again with every purchase. This gave the opportunity to a period of quarantine to some online-shopping to increase the share of cashless payments up to 100%, — told Artem Sokolov.
According to him, the Commission for the acceptance consistently takes the third place of the costs a large retail business after payroll and logistics. On the problem rates acquiring drew the attention of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in 2019, calling the Commission for reception of payments casinoroom on business.
To subsidize the shortfall from the income of the acquiring banks will have to raise money, is designed to support borrowers and promote lending to, the President warned the National financial Association (NFA) Basil zablocki. He estimated the cost of a terminal for receiving cards that have to buy the sales outlet of 20 thousand rubles. In the future, these costs to the seller, particularly from the SME segment, will pass on to buyers.
According to the Director CloudPayments Dmitry Spiridonov, if such initiatives are to be expanded, then the deterioration in the terms of loyalty programs (a decrease of cashback, “miles” and grace period) until their complete abolition will be forced to think almost all Russian banks.
