Wildberries revoked commission – Kommersant FM

Wildberries has begun returning commissions when paying with cards from international payment systems, as reported by marketplace users on social networks. Earlier, the Prosecutor General’s Office, together with the Central Bank and Rospotrebnadzor, decided to check the site after it introduced a 3% commission when paying for orders with Visa and Mastercard cards. Regulators will study how the site’s decision relates to consumer rights and whether it is thereby trying to earn extra money. Wildberries, in turn, insists that it complies with the laws, and cannot directly process transactions with cards of foreign payment systems. How valid are the trading platform’s arguments? And will other marketplaces take a similar step? Vladimir Rasulov will tell.

Wildberries announced new conditions for Visa and Mastercard holders after the fact. The press service of the site on the morning of October 12 reported that from the 10th, when paying for orders using these cards issued in Russia, a commission of 3% applies.

However, the measure does not apply to transactions through the Fast Payment System, the SberPay service or using the Mir card. In the case of foreign systems, there is a technical barrier, since it is now impossible to directly process such payments, Wildberries emphasized. At the same time, when Visa and Mastercard left Russia, payments using their cards began to be carried out by the National Payment Card System, also known as the operator of the Mir system.

How convincing is the marketplace explanation in this case? An independent expert in the payment market, Dmitry Vishnyakov, was surprised by the company’s decision: “Only the National Payment Card System sees a transaction using a Visa card. What remains of international payment systems? These are, as a rule, interbank tariffs that are established for credit institutions. This does not mean that payment systems receive this money.

If there is a difference in the tariffs for accepting Visa, MasterCard and Mir cards, then it is insignificant and does not account for the 3% that we are talking about now.”

As Wildberries clarified, 3% is the remuneration of the bank that processes payments. True, Wildberry Bank has been servicing the marketplace since 2021.

The Prosecutor General’s Office decided to find out whether consumer rights are thereby respected and whether the site is trying to generate additional income. Together with it, the actions of the marketplace will be checked by Rospotrebnadzor and the Central Bank.

However, there is no need to talk about breaking the law in this case, says Artem Sokolov, president of the Association of Internet Trade Companies, which includes Wildberries: “The law obliges us to accept national payment instruments. If you order something on the Internet, including Wildberries, then companies offer a lot of different payment scenarios in which there is no commission. Regarding this story, we need to see what position the regulators will take.”

It is possible that Wildberries simply decided to optimize its own costs. However, other players in the e-commerce market are unlikely to begin introducing commissions for payments with cards of foreign payment systems. This is what Valentin Marchenko, co-founder of the neural network response service to reviews on marketplaces Spix, thinks:

“It is quite possible that the company simply offered reduced commissions for working with Mir, SberPay and SBP cards. Thus, the marketplace seeks to transfer its customers to these systems. Will this make waves in the market? Don’t think.

This already creates a rather negative field around the image of the marketplace, and it is unlikely that other market players will want to jump on this bandwagon and at least receive negative comments from their users.”

A couple of years ago, Wildberries already introduced a 2% commission for payments on Visa and Mastercard cards. Then the site talked about the high tariffs set by international payment systems, and clarified that in fact we were not talking about additional fees, but about a 2% discount on payments with Mir cards.

Foreign systems then criticized the marketplace’s decision, but the dispute was later resolved. And Wildberries eventually canceled the discounts, and the conditions for all payments became the same.

---

Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.

Ilya Sizov