The Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 878 "On the implementation of settlements for sold goods (rendered services) using special means of payment."
According to the document, by 2012, the overwhelming majority of business entities involved in trade, catering and the provision of services and using settlement transaction registrars (RRO or cash registers) in accordance with the law, will be required to accept payment cards. Acceptance of "plastic" must be carried out by at least half of the cash registers of the retail outlet.
It should be noted that, depending on the scale of the company's business, different deadlines are provided for fulfilling the requirements of the resolution. Thus, large players (except small businesses) operating in cities with populations over 100,000 are required to install PoS terminals by July 1, 2011.
However, small merchants in towns with populations of 25,000 to 100,000 can comply with the regulation with a six-month grace period — by the beginning of 2012. To be fair, there are exceptions.
For example, indoor catering establishments (in particular, student and school cafeterias) and small shops with an area of no more than 20 square meters (except for those located at gas stations) are not required to accept cards. Merchants operating in towns with populations under 25,000 are also exempt from mandatory PoS terminalization.
It is noteworthy that the draft regulation was prepared almost a year ago. The original version of the document was more stringent in its approach to merchants, as it provided for the State Tax Administration to monitor their compliance with the regulations. Furthermore, it proposed introducing a maximum cash payment amount.
Specifically, the possibility of banning cash payments for purchases over 10,000 UAH was considered. However,
Regardless, Resolution No. 878 does not provide for sanctions against merchants for failure to comply with its provisions. However, the main lobbyist for the adoption of the document, Alexander Karpov, director of the Ukrainian Interbank Association of Payment System Members (EMA; Kyiv; since 1999; about 100 members), assures that control will still be carried out.
“Tax authorities control the cash operations of merchants on the basis of the NBU Resolution No. 637 of 15.12.04. As soon as this document includes provisions on the mandatory presence of PoS terminals, the tax inspectorate will be able to monitor compliance with this requirement. There has already been a corresponding instruction from the Prime Minister to the First Deputy of the NBU - to resolve the issue with the control procedure (and this despite the so-called independence of the National Bank. - Ed.)”, - says Mr. Karpov.
According to his estimates, by 2012, 200-400 thousand new terminals will be installed in the country. At the same time, it is possible that some merchants will have to do this at their own expense. If we are talking about significant turnover, banks are interested in placing PoS terminals in such companies. Whereas small merchants are not interesting to bankers, so they will be forced to fulfill the Cabinet of Ministers’ requirements at their own expense.
“There are no problems for large retail chains, they have already installed terminals. Smaller merchants, of course, will have a hard time, since there are concerns that banks may inflate commissions or refuse to install terminals at their own expense,” — notes Igor Kishko, CEO of the Ukrainian Trade Association (Kyiv; professional association in the trade sector; since 2008).
According to experts, PoS terminals will soon be increasingly installed at the expense of merchants. For example, Mr. Karpov is convinced that even small players are quite capable of installing such devices at their own expense. “A terminal costs no more than a mobile phone in the pocket of any entrepreneur, namely $300,” he says.
According to the NBU, as of July 1, 2010, banks installed 107 thousand PoS terminals (of which 79.4 thousand were in retail outlets, the rest were in bank branches). Bankers themselves are skeptical about their ability to increase their PoS terminal fleet by 4-5 times in one year.
“To purchase such a quantity of even the most primitive devices, it is necessary to spend $60-90 million. Moreover, in times of crisis, when unprofitable banks are trying to save on everything and, on the contrary, optimize their networks,” admits the head of the card business of a large bank, who wished to remain anonymous.
Source: business.ua
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