The international payment systems Visa and MasterCard plan to raise the interchange rate* to 0.9% from July 1, 2023. Accordingly, the commission for acquiring, which the business pays for each non-cash transaction to banks and payment systems, will increase.
This will entail hundreds of millions of hryvnias of additional costs for Ukrainian businesses per year. Ukrainian retailers are asking the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine to intervene in the situation.
The main and undesirable consequence of these changes will be an increase in prices for goods for Ukrainians. Ukrainian business believes that the current interchange rate of 0.7% is economically justified and a compromise for all parties. This allows retailers not to increase their costs and restrain price growth, and banks and payment systems to earn on the provided acquiring services.
Now the cost of acquiring and interchange rates in Ukraine are higher than even European indicators. The market of payment services is dominated by two payment systems, so there is practically no alternative left for Ukrainian entrepreneurs to look for other companies that would provide these services.
Now the Ukrainian business is exhausted and does not have free funds to include the increased cost of interchange (acquiring) in their expenses. The Ukrainian Retailers Association once again appeals to the authorities, MasterCard and VISA international payment systems, as well as Ukrainian banks with a request not to raise interchange (acquiring) rates until the end of martial law.
In addition, Ukrainian retailers are asking not to apply the terms of the Memorandum between payment systems and the National Bank, which was signed in July 2021, until the end of martial law. This document provided for a schedule for changing the interchange rate until July 2023. The memorandum, to which international payment systems are now appealing, was signed in peacetime and did not take into account the circumstances in which Ukrainians and businesses are already in the second year of a full-scale war.
Under the conditions of war, such a position of global business, whose shares in Ukraine account for about 99.4% of the market (45.5% of Visa Inc. and 53.9% of MasterCard Inc., respectively), is incomprehensible. At the same time, these companies hardly suffered during the war, since they are global players, in particular: the net profit of Visa Inc. for 2022 is $14.96 billion, and the net profit of MasterCard Inc. — $9.93 billion
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*Interchange is an interbank commission that the bank servicing the enterprise transfers to the bank whose card was used to pay for the goods or services.
2023-06-27 19:47:12
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