Salary Halvah

2021: Transfer of Sovcombank's salary customers from Visa cards to Mastercard

On June 7, 2021, it became known about the transfer of Sovcombank salary customers from Visa cards to Mastercard. Thanks to this project, a credit institution can earn tens of millions of dollars.

According to Kommersant, citing a source in Sovcombank, current corporate customers who have salary projects are offered to switch to Salary Halva on Mastercard. The company, whose salary project was implemented at this bank, confirmed to the publication that its employees began to re-issue Visa cards to Mastercard.

Sovcombank transfers its salary customers from Visa cards to Mastercard

According to Dmitry Vishnyakov, an independent expert on the payment card market, under such agreements, the payment system pays a reward to the bank for a certain number of cards issued or for a certain amount of transactions. Usually, a premium is paid to the bank for each card when converting a portfolio of cards issued on a competitive payment system, he said.

Sources of the publication in large banks said that rewards for banks can be in the millions and even tens of millions of dollars. If it is not possible to issue the necessary number of cards, then the bank pays a fine.

Natalya Nikolskaya, chairman of the Arbat Moscow Bar Association, says the law allows a citizen to leave the organization's salary project and open a card in any bank. But in reality, this is quite rare due to the reluctance of companies - for an employer organization, each such transfer in practice means a direct loss, the bank where the organization is served takes an increased interest for such services.

According to Kommersant in VTB, only about 10% of the salary portfolio falls on single payment orders, when a legal entity sends salaries to employees on bank cards directly without a contract.^[1]

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