Fail-pay – Newspaper Kommersant No. 169 (7370) dated 09/14/2022
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The term for connecting the SBPey service for all banks with a universal license passed almost two and a half months ago, but not all even systemically important credit institutions provided it to their customers. The Central Bank is no longer ready to put up with such a situation and promises to apply “supervisory measures” to violators. Experts believe that payment through SBP is less profitable for banks than classic acquiring, especially after the restrictions on commissions are lifted. Therefore, they prefer to pay a fine rather than spend money on the implementation of an application that can reduce the volume of card payments.
Kommersant studied how banks complied with the rule that from July 1, all credit institutions with a universal license had to connect to the SBPey payment application, developed by the Central Bank for payment through the Fast Payment System (SBP). The application works with more than 150 banks, but so far not all systemically important banks have connected it. So, Alfa-Bank, Otkritie and Tinkoff-Bank do not have SBPey, while Gazprombank and Sberbank “are in the process of connecting”, and the latter has been for more than a month. In banks, “Kommersant” did not answer.
The Central Bank claims that most banks have implemented the functionality of paying for goods and services using SBPey. “Sufficient time was allotted for these procedures, taking into account the opportunity provided by the Bank of Russia to complete the setup of the systems later than the standard deadline,” they noted. We are talking about the fact that initially the banks were supposed to connect SBPey by April 1, but received a delay. “Taking into account the request of business to reduce the costs of accepting non-cash payments, we expect banks to complete all the necessary improvements on their side in the near future,” the Central Bank added, assuring that those who did not comply with the requirements of the regulator, “ work is underway, including the application of supervisory measures. What kind of measures, the Central Bank did not disclose.
When the Central Bank launched the FPS itself, the deadline for connecting all systemically important banks to it was set on October 1, 2019. And then only Sberbank did not comply with the requirement: at first it received an order from the regulator, after a few months it was fined, but in the end it connected only in May 2020. Today, this story is repeating itself, but there are more laggards.
Experts believe that banks are skeptical about making a profit from paying for goods and services through the FPS. As Roman Prokhorov, head of the board of the Financial Innovations Association (AFI), explained to Kommersant, SBPey does not yet support payment via NFC everywhere, and for large retail outlets, the lack of such an opportunity “is quite critical, since when paying by QR codes, time customer service at the checkout is increasing.” In addition, there are no significant bonuses for customers when paying through the SBP, and all together these factors hinder the economical processes of connection, Mr. Prokhorov believes.
Dmitry Vishnyakov, an expert on the payment card market, confirms that SBPey “is not yet a very popular product for banks that have been investing in the development of card products for many years and would like to continue to receive income from them.” “Banks are simply not interested in offering a new service to customers, especially with commission income from cards that significantly exceed the potential from SBPey,” the expert believes.
Therefore, according to Mr. Vishnyakov, some banks are in no hurry, preferring to explain the delay with “technical difficulties” and, possibly, even pay a fine, rather than waste time and money on a commercially unprofitable product. “The idea that SBPey will increase the activity of customers also raises doubts, because the connection itself does not imply automatic investments in promoting this service,” the expert believes. Market participants interviewed by Kommersant admit that in the event of a significant flow of payments to SBPey, the largest acquiring banks may increase fees for card payments.
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