According to “Kommersant”, this week the state Council can discuss further decline acquiring commissions. Partially they were already reduced as one of the anti-crisis measures on the background of the pandemic, and market participants are requested to expand the practice. It was opposed by bankers, referring to the fact that consumers as a result of not winning, and even the adopted limits will cost the acquiring banks in 2 billion rubles, and issuing banks — 10 billion. the Association of Russian banks (ADB) on may 22 sent a letter (is available to Kommersant) Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and head of the presidential administration Anton Vaino. In them representatives of the banking community are asked not to apply “measures of administrative regulation to the interbank acquiring and commissions as anti-crisis measures to stimulate economic development.” As explain sources“”, the fact that the government and the Central Bank recently been receiving a number of letters from various trade unions, regional associations, with a request to reduce acquiring a Commission. According to them, further steps in this direction can be discussed in the coming days on the state Council.The position of the regulator regarding the regulation of the commissions on the payment market expressed by the first Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Olga Skorobogatova in response to one of these cases: “Foreign experience of state regulation of acquiring commissions shows that it does not lead to a proportional reduction of prices for consumers or more active stimulation of cashless payments on the side of trade and service enterprises (TSP)”. However, in the framework of measures to support citizens and the economy in a pandemic, the Central Bank on March 27, restricted the Commission on online purchases from 15 April to 30 September by 1% and 13 may have introduced the same limit for payment of medical services (from 1 June to 30 September). The government declined to comment.However, the highlight of the ADB, the fee reduction does not always lead to savings: “According to the results of calculations of the savings to the TSP (especially with a turnover less than 24 million rubles a year) the fee for acquiring services would be lower than that incurred additional costs in connection with the inability of banks to provide equipment and carry out maintenance at their own expense”. As explained “Kommersant” the head of the interdepartmental working group of the ADB Alexey Maslov, the costs of acquiring the connection points amount to an average of 14-20 thousand rubles.”In the case of betting limitations acquiring can be difficult to ensure the profitability of the service enterprises with small trade turnover”. Will benefit only the big retailers, “which are already in terms of merchant acquiring significantly below the average”,— said in a letter to the ARB.At the same time, claiming that the customers do not benefit from lower Commissionsecond, banks have their own large losses: RUR 2 billion to the acquiring banks and about RUB 10 billion for the banks-issuers. To compensate for lost revenue, some banks have started to worsen the loyalty program to the customers. In Gazprombank, for example, has ceased to accrue cash back in the categories of online trading that come under the restriction. About changing the bonuses for transactions say and VTB. However, do not all. In Bank “Opening”, “Kommersant” reported that cashback is not reduced and there are no such plans. The same policy is carried out in PSB, promising to “continue to encourage customers to use cashless payments”. Head of Deposit products Tinkoff Bank trust leichenko considers unfair worsening of the condition and change of category for online cashback, encouraging customers to pay offline.”We believe that acquiring low, it is important not only to maintain but also to extend to courier delivery, the points of issue of orders and into categories that have yet to fall under decline, as home goods, sporting goods, books, furniture, furs, furniture,— said “Kommersant” the President of the Association of companies of Internet trade Artem Sokolov.— This measure will provide a stimulus as quickly as possible to restart the business.”Maxim Builov, Eugene Kryuchkov
