RBC: Visa will reduce tariffs for accepting cards in the largest Russian online stores from February 1 
benefits for large online stores – it will reduce tariffs for accepting cards for payment to 1.2-1.5 percent of the cost of goods, depending on the volume of online sales, writes RBC.
The Visa newsletter says, that the new program will be extended to Ozon, Wildberries and other Russian marketplaces. Previously, the payment system did not introduce special rates for large online retailers.
We are talking about the interbank commission (interchanging). This is the commission that the bank servicing the outlet transfers to the bank whose card the buyer paid for. The size of the interchange is set by the payment system. Its share in the acquiring commission is 70 percent. The size of the interchanging in e-commerce ranges from 1.9 to 2.4 percent, the acquiring commission for large businesses is 2 percent, for the average – 2.4 percent, said President of the Association of Internet Trade Companies Artem Sokolov. If the size of the interchanging is higher than the acquiring, then the difference is paid by the bank serving the seller. He compensates for his expenses at the expense of the cost of other services and products for business, Sokolov noted.
Visa said that the new program is designed to stimulate the further development of e-commerce in Russia. The popularity of digital trading channels is evidenced by the fact that since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of transactions with Visa cards for purchases of goods on the Internet has grown by 31 percent. From July 9, 2022, preferential rates will be applied to online furniture and home goods stores with a large volume of sales, from August 6 – for large online home appliance stores.
The online retailer program will run for three years. To receive preferential rates on the trading floor, there must be no price discrimination on Visa cards. The size of the “interbank” will be 1.4 percent for tokenized payments via Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and 1.5 percent – for payments with the input of card data, if the total annual volume of payments on the store's website (not at the point of issue of orders and not upon delivery) is from 25 to 150 billion rubles. With the volume of transactions exceeding 150 billion rubles, the size of the commission for tokenized payments will be 1.2 percent, for card payments – 1.3 percent. Lower rates on tokenized payments are due to the fact that such transactions are more secure.
According to the rating of the top 100 largest online stores in Russia according to the Data Insight research agency, the first three places are occupied by Wildberries (online turnover 413 , 2 billion rubles), Ozon (197 billion rubles) and Citylink (132.7 billion rubles).
In August, Wildberries introduced a two percent commission when paying for goods with Visa and MasterCard. Holders of Mir cards, users of the Fast Payment System (FPS) and the SberPay payment system were still able to pay without surcharges. In response to Visa's claims, the marketplace said that it did not introduce additional commissions, but only indicated the tariffs of payment systems, giving buyers the opportunity to choose. In early November, Wildberries reduced the discount for Mir cardholders from two to one percent.