The popularity of payment terminals in Russia is declining

Photo: E. Reasonable / Vedomosti

According to the analytical agency J'son & Partners Consulting, last year the turnover of payment terminals in Russia grew by about 5%, to 1.15 trillion rubles. Compared with the previous year, the pace of development has slowed three times, Vedomosti writes . According to experts, this slowdown is associated with a decrease in the number of payment transactions that pass through the terminals. Note that the number of transactions is gradually decreasing since 2010, but until now, such a decrease has been offset by an increase in the average payment amount - from 116 rubles. in 2009 to 230 rubles. last year. Now, however, began to decrease and the turnover volume of payments for mobile communication through the terminals. The share of payments of this type in the total turnover decreased to 50% and below.

There are several reasons why people work with terminals less often than before. First, the terminals have relatively high commissions. Secondly, subscribers of telecom operators (both cellular and Internet connection providers) prefer to pay for the services of such companies through mobile applications or through the websites of companies. According to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, by the beginning of 2011, about 137 million bank cards were issued in Russia. By the beginning of this year, more than 227 million such cards had been issued. The number of active e-wallets is also increasing - over the past year the number of such wallets has increased by 17% (about 45 million now).

Some analysts believe that it is now possible to talk about a fall in turnover, and not about a slowdown in growth. According to the top manager of one of the largest electronic payment systems in the Russian Federation, only last year the turnover of terminals decreased by about 10-15%. A common cause is the popularization and distribution of banking products and services.
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Another expert believes that the turnover of payments through the terminals is still growing, but at a much slower pace than the turnover of electronic money. Perhaps this is a consequence of the saturation of the market and the growing popularity among the population and business of alternative means of payment. However, cash payments are the main form of payment, so a strong drop in the turnover of terminals can not be expected.

According to Qiwi, about 36.6% of people who replenish their accounts through the terminals took advantage of the company's terminals in the first quarter of this year. In 2014 alone, this company had an 8% more payment points, with a total number of points exceeding 181,000.

The director general of Telecom Daily, Denis Kuskov, believes that the terminals are inferior to a banking product due to the relatively high commission charged to payers. After all, commissions are the main source of profits for terminal owners, since internal commissions are very low.

The head of the payment services development department at Alfa Bank, Yevgeny Ievlev, believes that payments are now gradually being transferred to online channels. Thus, according to Ievlev, the number of users of online banking and Alfa Bank’s mobile application is growing at a double-digit rate.