The number of outlets connected to the SBP is growing faster than the volume of transactions

The number of merchants connected to the fast payment system (FPS) quadrupled in April-June. The volume and number of FPS payments also increased, but more modestly. Experts explain the situation by the fact that Sberbank has begun to actively connect customers from small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to its Pay QR payment service, with which, in addition to the bank’s desire, SBP is also connected.

According to the data of the Central Bank, published on August 22, in the second quarter the number of merchants connected to the SBP exceeded 1 million units. Unlike previous quarters, when their number grew by about 100,000 in three months, in the second quarter of this year, almost 400,000 merchants added at once.

The growth in the number and volume of payments turned out to be somewhat more modest than the increase in the number of connected merchants. In absolute terms, the indicators increased significantly – by 220 billion rubles, up to 620 billion rubles, with an average quarterly growth of about 100 billion rubles earlier. and by 140 million units, up to 340 million transactions, with an average of 50 million units in previous quarters. But in relative terms, growth of 55% and 70%, respectively, is far from past records of hundreds of percent.

The Bank of Russia explained to Kommersant that the dynamics of growth in the number of merchants in the SBP “is influenced by various factors and, first of all, business is interested in paying using the system, as this can significantly reduce costs, as well as provide customers with another convenient payment method” .

Nevertheless, bankers believe that payment through the SBP will not soon be equal in volume to card payments.

Alexey Kirichek, head of the department for the development of acquiring and payment services at Alfa-Bank, notes that “so far SBP has been increasing its share mainly through online trading, where the payment scenario is convenient and fast for the client, and in offline retail it is harder for the system to compete with contactless payment by card , then the rate of replacement/cannibalization will be slower.”

Inna Emelyanova, Executive Director for Acquiring and Innovation Projects at Russian Standard, believes that saving on commissions and speed of receiving payments is an obvious benefit for the company when using SBP. Tinkoff Bank noted that the SBP has a peculiarity – the absence of cashbacks familiar to the user, which can disappoint customers and affect the share of the service.

VTB believes that a full-fledged and centralized FPS incentive program with the support of the regulatory body will allow a multiple increase in the volume of payments through the system. According to Roman Prokhorov, the head of the board of the Financial Innovations Association, as soon as a balanced system of stimulating customers using cards and SBPs is created, the volumes of card and SBP settlements will become comparable.

At the same time, bankers believe that it is unlikely that it will be possible to repeat the record of the second quarter in terms of the number of merchants connected to St. Petersburg in the near future. Thus, Alexey Kirichek draws attention to the fact that the growth rate of the number of merchants will slow down a little due to the saturation of the general customer base of the SME segment with the service. “This is where we see the highest demand in terms of connections,” he says.

According to Inna Emelyanova, the total number of merchants connected to the service by the bank is expected to grow by approximately 33% in the third and fourth quarters compared to their total number in the first and second quarters of the current year.

At the same time, according to independent expert Maxim Mitusov, most of this increase was accounted for by individual entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs served in one specific bank – Sberbank. “Sberbank is actively offering its existing merchant customers to connect to its Pay QR solution, which also connects with the acceptance of payments via SBP — that is, the connection occurs in a package,” he explains. “None of the other banks is physically capable of giving such an increase in a short time,” he specified. “But newly connected merchants from Sberbank clients do not offer their customers SBP as a separate payment method, but give it along with others, with SBP at the very bottom list, which gives the minimum amount of payments through this service.

Other banks, adds Mr. Mitusov, purposefully and massively connecting small and medium-sized businesses, as well as large networks to accept payments through the SBP, in the next six months will increase the number and volume of transactions.

Maxim Buylov