The Bank of Russia will set the maximum value of the acquiring fee at 1%

The Bank of Russia has decided to set the maximum value of acquiring fees at 1% for companies that sell socially significant goods or provide such services until 31 August 2022. These include food, consumer and everyday goods, communications services, housing and communal services, medicine, education, culture, tourism and passenger transportation. 

According to Denis Dybov, Director of the Entrepreneurship Development Department of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, this anti-crisis solution and support measure should be expanded both in terms of the number of sectors and the time frame. 

"It is necessary to expand the list of categories of goods, jobs and services for which a maximum fee of 1% is set, and to make this restriction indefinite. Indeed, many small businesses have not yet recovered from the decline in solvent demand during the period of COVID restrictions, especially the catering and fitness industry. There is no sector of the economy that is not affected by the current situation with rising prices and disrupted supply chains," said the expert for MKR-Media International Press Centre, a partner of the TV BRICS network. 

According to Denis Dybov, it is also important to continue expanding the functionality of the Faster Payments System (FPS), which was created by the Bank of Russia as a simple and cheap alternative to acquiring. For this purpose, it is important to ensure that payments can be fiscalised in the FPS, which implies removing the need for online tills for businesses - this function can be transferred to the service itself or to the bank providing the service. 

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