The international payment systems Visa and Mastercard, in their 2021 reports, listed risks that could prevent them from increasing their share in the national markets of Russia, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Canada. This is reported “Kommersant” on Monday, January 31st.
Among the risks are restrictions due to the pandemic, increased state supervision and regulation in the financial and payment markets, and increased competition. Payment systems complain that in Russia the law “virtually prohibits” them from processing internal transactions.
“The central bank-controlled National Payment Card System (NPCS) is the only entity allowed to process domestically,” Visa said in a report.
Foreign payment systems see a threat in the development of the Faster Payments System (FPS). Visa notes that the central banks of a number of countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Russia, are developing or expanding national real-time payment networks. The company believes that as a result, in countries where such networks exist, they can reduce Visa’s revenues, increase its costs and “squeeze” the system out of the country.
The newspaper, citing the NSPK report for 2021, indicates that in terms of emission, the share of the Mir payment system increased from 29% to 32.3% over the year, and in terms of the volume of transactions – from 23% to 25%. The concept for the development of the Bank of Russia payment system states that in 2024 the Mir system should occupy 30% in the country in terms of the volume of transactions. In addition, in December 2020, about 30 million payments worth 200 billion rubles went through the FPS, and in December 2021, more than 130 million payments worth almost 800 billion rubles.
In November 2021, Visa promised to reduce payment fees on large marketplaces, including Ozon and Wildberries. From February 1, 2022, its size will be from 1.2 to 1.5% of the value of the goods, depending on the volume of online sales. Previously, the payment system did not have separate tariffs for large online retailers.
In August, Wildberries introduced new pricing conditions. When paying with a card of an international payment system, an additional commission appears. When paying through Mir, SBP and SberPay – no. Then Visa launched its own investigation into this fact, saying that such actions “negatively affect” consumers and businesses. At the end of the same month, the Wildberries press service stated that the online retailer’s acquiring banks did not detect violations of the rules of international payment systems after the commission was introduced.
In October, Visa announced that it no longer captures payment violations in Wildberries.
#Visa #Mastercard #announced #risks #competition #Russian #market