Transfers from legal entities to individuals through the fast payment system are growing at an accelerated pace

Transfers from legal entities to individuals through the fast payment system (FPS) are growing at an accelerated pace this year and in the third quarter exceeded last year’s figure five times. A noticeable role in this growth was played by the NSPK promotion with cashback for purchases using SBP, the law on non-cash payment for returned scrap metal, the growth in the number of self-employed people and the popularity of guaranteed transactions on classifieds websites.

At the end of last week, the Bank of Russia published third-quarter statistics on SBP. According to it, transfers from legal entities to individuals have been growing for the second quarter in a row. If in the first quarter of this year compared to the fourth quarter of last year, this growth was by 1.6 billion rubles, to 44.8 billion rubles. (3.7%), then in the second quarter compared to the first quarter it amounted to 14.3 billion rubles. (31.9%), and in the third quarter it was even more – 18.7 billion rubles. (31.6%), increasing to RUB 77.8 billion. As the Central Bank explained to Kommersant, today it is possible to transfer wages using SBP, and some organizations make such payments, but statistics on these payments in total are not kept.

It is worth noting that a year ago, in the third quarter of 2022, the volume of transfers from legal entities to citizens was almost five times lower – 15.6 billion rubles. Market participants explain this significant growth by various factors. Thus, in their opinion, SBP is actively used by insurers and microfinance organizations (MFOs), transferring funds to their clients. True, as the chairman of the board of SRO “MiR” Elman Mehdiyev told Kommersant, the share of transfers to borrowers through SBP from MFOs today is insignificant. The All-Russian Union of Insurers told Kommersant that insurance companies use this service if the payment can be made through SBP, because it is convenient.

Bankers confirm the trend. Alfa Bank told Kommersant that the service is mainly used by clients from medium-sized businesses, and in October alone, the turnover of medium-sized businesses amounted to more than 1.5 billion rubles. In turn, Kirill Tikhonov, deputy head of the medium and small business unit of PSB, notes that the volume of such transactions in the bank is growing by an average of 10% monthly, and the B2C payment mechanism via SBP is popular in the micro and small business segment. According to the head of VTB’s corporate digital business department, Spartak Solonin, the bank is recording a constant increase in the number and volume of transfers via SBP for settlements between legal entities and the self-employed. “Over the nine months of this year, the number of service users has grown sixfold, and the amount of payments has approached 1 billion rubles, and most often the service is used by companies from the trade and construction sectors,” he said. According to Inna Emelyanova, Executive Director for Acquiring and Innovation Projects at Russian Standard Bank, one of the drivers for the growth of B2C transfers was the start of a promotion with cashback for paying for purchases using SBP, which has had significant success both among trade and service enterprises and stimulates popularity of payment via SBP (via QR code or NFC) among buyers.

Deputy Director of the Small Business Department of Rosbank Vitaly Parshin draws attention to the fact that the law on strictly non-cash payments to individuals handing over scrap metal is approaching. “We note interest in this service, prepared by our bank, specifically from companies that accept scrap from the population,” he says.

The volume of transfers via SBP from legal entities to individuals has increased sevenfold since the beginning of the year, and one of the reasons for this was the growing popularity of guaranteed transactions, says Delobank director Irina Kuzmina. “When purchasing on ad sites, for the sake of security, you send money to a special account of the guarantor (usually the platform itself), and upon receipt of the parcel, the money goes to the seller, in fact, the transaction is made between two individuals, but technically the transfer is carried out by a legal entity acting as a guarantor,”— she says. “This technology was launched a long time ago, but at the start it played the role primarily as a channel for receiving money for returned goods,” says independent expert Maxim Mitusov. “Later, banks realized that this is a completely independent product that can be commercially successful.”

Maxim Builov, Yulia Poslavskaya