As Visa and MasterCard will work in Russia

The Government of the Russian Federation and payment Visa and MasterCard systems reached the agreement on further work of these systems in Russia


Payment Visa and MasterCard systems remain in Russia. But they should create the Russian processing and the Russian operator.

In response to the western sanctions Russia adopted the law that since July 1 the payment systems which are not national significant have to bring on the special bank account of Russia a security contribution (by calculations of the Central Bank – about 80 billion rubles). Foreign payment systems told that for them it is the very heavy sum, and zasobiratsya from Russia. But Russia is interested in work of Visa and MasterCard as they serve almost all Russian holders of cards.

On Friday, May 23, at a meeting of representatives of the international payment systems with the Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and the first Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov compromise was reached, told RBC sources in both payment systems and the federal official. The government will suggest the president to initiate a delay – that the law came into force not on July 1, and on January 1, 2015. And payment systems during this time will try to begin national significant – to organize processing in Russia and to create the Russian operator (then a contribution it is not necessary to pay).

Processing

An attempt to oblige the international payment systems to arrange processing in Russia was made three years ago when the Duma considered the law "About National Payment System". But then payment systems declared that creation of processing will lead to big expenses which participants of the market estimated at 30-50 mln. dollars, and the corresponding point from the project disappeared.

At a Friday meeting representatives of payment systems agree that they should create the Russian processing, the deputy minister of finance Alexey Moiseyev told RBC: "In such countries as Turkey or France, calculations for internal operations are carried out on internal infrastructure, and it frightens nobody", – he added.

But on creating the processing, at Visa and MasterCard can leave till two years. Meanwhile the delay will be granted all for half a year. In this situation the international payment systems, most likely, will look for the Russian partner. "Use of the processing capacities which are available in Russia is one of options, but they have to conform to our requirements for reliability and many other parameters", – the director of interaction with public authorities in Russia and the CIS countries of the MasterCard company Alexey Malinovsky told RBC.

The Sberbank has large processing centers, VTB, payment system "Gold Crown". With Sberbank payment systems already began negotiations, tells RBC source close to Sberbank.

"For processing of a traffic of payment transactions of Visa and MasterCard generated by the Russian banks, rather server equipment capable to serve 1000-1500 transactions per second, – the CEO of the Compass Plus company Yury Kolyakin tells. – Many processing centers have such capacities in Russia. Many of these centers also possess the acceptable characteristics of reliability".

The general director of the processing company Uniteller Alexey Bogatkin notes that in rush hours the number of transactions of cards can reach 8-10 thousand a second. "The international safety requirements to transactions of cards, and existence of territorially distributed reserve platforms put an arrangement of data-centers with the level of availability of 99,999% difficult, but a feasible task before the existing Russian payment systems and other players of this market", – he considers.

Operator

To find the national importance, Visa and MasterCard it is necessary to get the Russian owners. For example, the franchasing scheme can be used: the Russian legal person who will receive the franchize on business will be created.

"This requirement is also feasible, and different options up to control transfer to the Russian companies will be considered", – tells RBC source in one of payment systems.



Tatyana Aleshkina, Elena Malysheva
Newspaper of RBC daily of online
 No. of 26.05.14