MTS-Bank will throw off the card – Kommersant

MTS Bank is launching a new product on the market – a payment card with a discount instead of a cashback. Experts note that a discount immediately instead of waiting for a cashback at the end of the month may be attractive for customers. However, the small size of the discount and the limited use of it can neutralize this advantage. In addition, for the bank, such a scheme is more expensive than the use of cashback.

MTS-Bank is going to offer its customers a new Mir Advanced card, according to which, instead of cashback at the end of the month, traditional bank programs will provide a discount in all stores daily.

In the case of payment in online stores, the discount will be 3%, and in regular stores – 1%.

These conditions will be valid for two months, subsequently, in order to keep them, you must make at least 25 card purchases per month (but the volume of discounts is limited to 10 thousand rubles).

As Grigory Mirzoyan, Director of Debit Cards at MTS Bank, explained, this is a new mechanics of the loyalty card program. “The client receives a benefit at the time of payment and immediately knows what it is – there is no need to track the cashback payout separately and figure out why such an amount fell on the card or bonus account,” he said.

According to market participants, the offer is unexpected and “due to novelty, it can shoot.” At the same time, since the average buyer has more offline purchases than online, and the average interchange commission (that is, with which the bank can provide a discount) in the market exceeds 1%, the scheme may well be economically justified.

At the same time, experts note that the main task of the action is to attract as many new customers as possible.

Offers aimed at this appear on the market from time to time. So, at the end of 2022, against the backdrop of the departure of international payment systems, banks began to actively promote payment rings and bracelets, and at the beginning of 2023, payment stickers that are glued to a smartphone case came into fashion (see “Kommersant” dated January 23). But not all such initiatives are immediately supported by the consumer. The same cashback, which appeared in Russia back in 2007, became popular only in the summer of 2012, when banks began offering a refund of up to 10% of the purchase amount.

Experts assess the prospects of the novelty proposed by MTS cautiously. According to the head of the board of the Electronic Money Association, Viktor Dostov, “the discount is immediately more attractive in a certain sense – cashback is usually described by complex rules, and it is quite difficult to remember them in relation to a specific purchase.” At the same time, Dmitry Vishnyakov, an independent expert in the payment card market, notes, “a 1-3% discount is not something unique, although it may be an easier mechanism for administering such a loyalty program compared to, for example, cashback, insurance or concierge. -service”.

The head of the board of the Financial Innovations Association, Roman Prokhorov, believes that in order to oust cashback from the market, the discount scheme should have clear economic benefits for customers. But “as long as they are not traced, on the contrary, the general limitation on the size of the discount is worse than for cashback programs.”

Vice-President of the Association of Banks of Russia Alexei Voylukov notes that if the discount is given immediately upon purchase, a number of technical problems may arise. According to him, in the case of a cashback, the client receives back part of the money he has already paid and there are no tax consequences (there are clarifications from the Federal Tax Service on this), and a direct discount can be interpreted as a gift and tax must be paid on it. “The easiest way to implement the scheme is cashback, which is realized during the day, then there are no contradictions with the store and the payment system, or tax consequences for the client,” he said.

Whether other banks will follow this path will depend on the outcome of the project – whether MTS Bank will be able to significantly increase its client base. From the bank’s point of view, Mr. Voylukov notes, this is a more complex scheme than a cashback at the end of the month, and, accordingly, it should be more costly.

Maxim Buylov