Players have appeared in the pawnshop market, ready to compete in capital with banks
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Players have appeared on the pawnshop market who are ready to compete with banks in terms of capital. Thus, Neolombard increased its authorized capital to 370 million rubles. The purpose of such capitalization is to obtain permission from the Central Bank to combine pawnshop and settlement activities. The pawnshop is already working as a payment agent and is ready to enter the payment market independently, including at the international level. Experts, however, do not see any synergy in settlement and pawnshop activities.
As Kommersant learned, Neolombard increased its authorized capital to 370 million rubles. This is confirmed by data from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities dated October 23. As a result of additional capitalization, Neolombard became the industry leader in this indicator. Moreover, at the moment, the level of the authorized capital of Neolombard has become higher than the Central Bank requires for banks with a basic license (300 million rubles).
According to the Central Bank register, as of October 23, 1,891 operating pawnshops were registered in the Russian Federation. At the moment, the minimum authorized capital for a pawnshop in 2023 remains at 10 thousand rubles, although bills have been introduced proposing to increase it to 50 million rubles. The activities of pawnshops are limited by the relevant law – issuing loans secured by movable property.
As Marina Brazhnikova, general director of Neolombard, explained to Kommersant, the company is currently already a bank payment agent for Qiwi. “Having observed significant demand from our existing clients for this service, we came to the conclusion that it was economically feasible to develop an international transactional business in addition to the main one,” she explained, “the participants decided to increase capital to the level of a basic license of a credit organization and initiate a dialogue with the Central Bank regarding the possibility of combining pawnshop and payment activities, possibly on the basis of a license of a settlement non-bank credit organization (NBCO) or non-bank payment service providers (NPSP). The implementation of the latter institution has been discussed by the Central Bank since last year; according to Kommersant’s sources, the regulator prepared changes to legislation, carried out interdepartmental coordination and brought this issue up for discussion in September, but it did not receive support from the ADB and AKIT.
According to Ms. Brazhnikova, negotiations with the Bank of Russia began in the summer regarding the legalization of accepting cryptocurrencies as collateral (see Kommersant, June 19).
Participants in both the pawnshop and settlement and payment markets consider the idea difficult to implement. “We see development in a different direction: our expertise in the pawnshop industry allowed us to identify the secondary market for highly liquid goods as a promising direction,” explained the head of Mosgorlombard, chairman of the board of the National Association of Pawnshops Alexey Lazutin. Chairman of the Board of the Regional Association of Pawnshops Lyudmila Gribok noted that this is an isolated case so far.”
Whether a pawnshop, even with such an authorized capital, will be given a license from the Central Bank for RNKO is a big question, since it will be necessary to completely change the current legislation for the pawnshop market, for example, the basic laws on pawnshops, on consumer loans, on AML/CFT and, finally, the Civil Code, and it will take more than one year, she concludes. “With a pawnshop license, the company will not be able to conduct international transactions, the NPPU does not yet exist in nature, so it remains an NPO. With a capital of 370 million rubles. You can get not only an NPO license,” adds ADB President Alexey Voylukov. It is possible to combine pawnshop activities with international payments, but I don’t see the point in it, he concluded.
With a capital of more than 300 million rubles. Neolombard could obtain a banking license, but considers this unnecessary. “A banking license is redundant for both the pawnshop and the “pawnshop-transaction” business, it’s like buying an airplane to fly for bread. “It’s economically irrational,” they clarified. “Especially since best-practice speaks of the possibility of building a successful retail transactional business without a banking license, Revolut, which provides services in the UK on the basis of an EMI license (Electronic Money Issuer, not a bank).
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