Krasnodar, 8 May – Yug Times. The volumes of cashless payments are permanently growing. What is more, neither crisis phenomena nor reducing personal income affects the trend showing the increasing share of card payments.
It is really fast and convenient to pay with a bank card – both for a buyer, for a shop whose publicity and, as a result, turnover grows, and for a bank. However, small businesses seem to take it slow to install card readers – because of the bank fees for acquiring of cards (their acceptance for cashless payments for the goods and services). The existing model stirs up disputes about the expenses. If large chains want to reduce the amount of the bank fees, small businesses often have to ask their customers to pay in cash, because they cannot afford to pay a 2 to 3% and more commission fee from their low turnovers.
“Speaking about southern Russian regions, traditionally bank cards are not so much popular there; people have liked and continue to like cash,” Tatiana Balianchikova, assistant professor of the Department of Financial Markets of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, asserts. “However, it looks like these regions won’t be able escape the national trend.”
Indeed, cash or Sberbank Online transfers are very popular in the villages, small towns and resorts. The holidaymakers always have cash when they come to the seaside. So a small private entrepreneur selling ice cream or renting rooms does not want to install a special card reader and pay bank fee for card acquiring.
Well, all this refers to small towns and villages – but what about Sochi, Novorossiysk, Anapa or Krasnodar?
“In the ‘richer’ regions – like Moscow City and province, St. Petersburg and province, Tatarstan and Krasnodar region – the share of payments with cards is considerably higher than in the ‘depressive’ regions,” Aleksei Korenev, Finam analyst, comments. “The location of a shop is also an important factor. If in large cities almost 100% of points of sale are ready to accept cards, in small or remote settlements their number remains low. Correspondingly, cash payments continue to prevail there. In big cities, about a half of all settlements in shops are cashless. Southern Russian regions are not an exception in this respect, the more so that a considerable number of holidaymakers coming from central parts of Russia, used to card payments, gradually make this practice customary in the resorts.”
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