Acquiring

Revocation of the Master-Bank license (one of top 100 bank of Russia) has put into flutter not only ordinary depositors, but also the business community. For instance, many trade organizations met with serious losses using a popular for the moment service «acquiring» on the part of the failed bank.

Acquiring – range of services for accepting plastic cards in trade outlets. The credit organization rendering this service (acquirer bank) installs in outlets special equipment for accepting cards and makes all the calculations on operations with its using. The bank individually creates the terms of servicing and the commission rate and lay them down in a contract. The bank commission amounts to a certain interest of the purchase sum paid by a card in the trade outlet. In most cases the acquirer trains the personnel of the trade organization, installs all the necessary equipment and accesses the service for free. At the same time, it’s unnecessary to have bank account in the acquirer bank, in order to get this service. In this case money flows from the bank account of the buyer to acquirer’s correspondent account (in the bank, where the account of the trade organization is) and then to the bank account of the trade organization.

If the bank license is revoked, trade organizations may face the problem of collection of their own money assets, when using this service, in 3 cases: if the client paid by the credit card of the failed bank; if the trade organization has an account in the failed bank or if the failed bank rendered the service of acquiring. But how is it possible to protect one’s own business from losses in such cases?

In first case the company will lose the share of proceeds of the clients that paid by cards of the failed bank, as the information about operations “has hung up”. In order to get money, the company should apply to payment service provider. According to experts, the companies usually manage to get their money back within a very short time.

In the second case, the things are more complicated. It’s necessary to assure oneself of the reliability of the bank, opening an account in the bank. The experts recommend paying attention to major banks, included in the top 20 and also to the banks with a state participation. Besides, it’s important to specify if the bank is a member of the deposit insurance system (for the moment the maximal sum of compensation is 700 thousand rubles; if deposit is more than 700 thousand rubles, the depositor has a right to demand the rest sum of money, but it will take a lot of time). If it turned out that the bank had become a bankrupt the company could return money only when the insolvency proceeding starts and the competitive is formed. It should be mentioned that the Bank of Russia begins the insolvency proceeding after the revocation of the license, if the credit organization has the indices of insolvency, specified in the article 2 of the federal law № 40-FL; in case of lack of these indices, the Central Bank of Russia applies to arbitration court with a demand to liquidate the credit organization by enforcement.

As one of the ways to protect one’s business, experts offer to open accounts in different banks.

In the third case, if the license of the bank, which renders acquiring, was revoked, the part of trade organization proceeds will hang up on the correspondent account of the failed bank in the bank where this organization has an account (when the trading organization doesn’t have an account in the acquirer bank). In this case the company may file a claim in the arbitration court against the failed bank. Having proved that the money had hit the account before the revocation of the license, the companies, as a rule manage to get their money back within a very short time.

It is important to note that acquiring being widespread is a new service, therefore the legal system doesn’t have solutions to all the problems, such as deposit insurance against bankruptcy. That is why in order to protect one’s own business, it is important to be very prudent when choosing the bank.

Information agency Credinform is preparing to issue an independent methodology for identification of the bank financial condition that will help trade entrepreneurs, when choosing the bank.