Somers and SDM-Bank helped Kontur. Bank launch its own acquiring

2024: Creation of a facilitator acquiring scheme

In December 2024, Somers (part of Softline Group of Companies) implemented a facilitator acquiring scheme for Kontur Bank. This allowed the bank, which had not previously provided trading acquiring services, to accept non-cash payments from customers. Softline announced this on February 10, 2025.

Obtaining a full-fledged acquiring license for February 2025 is almost impossible, since the accounting parameters of international Visa and MasterCard systems and existing agreements with them are needed. Therefore, under the conditions of sanctions restrictions, the implementation of acquiring for Kontur. The Bank required a special approach. In response to a request from the bank, the Somers team proposed a facilitator acquiring scheme and fully provided the technical infrastructure. This model allows you to make payments through an acquiring partner bank integrated with the Somers payment and acquiring platform.

To connect the client, Kontur.Bank registers it on the Somers Platform, which automatically configures the terminal. SDM-Bank provides transaction processing by performing the functions of an acquiring bank.

This project was not easy, as it required building a complex structure of interactions between all participants in the process, "said Vadim Starchenkov, Director of the Somers Business Development Department (Softline Group of Companies). - We synchronized the onboarding process of Contour Bank's clients, set up technical integration and worked out legal aspects of cooperation. The search for a suitable acquiring bank turned out to be especially difficult. Experts considered several candidates, and only on the third attempt they managed to find a partner who fully corresponded to the customer's request.

37% of the Contour's customers are trade and service companies. Many of them use Kontur. Bank, since the bank integrates with other Kontur solutions, forming a single ecosystem for business. For the convenience of users, it was important for us to connect acquiring on favorable terms. We considered different solutions. Cooperation with Somers and SDM-Bank made it possible to ensure the quick launch of work with Visa and MasterCard cards. The partners created a facilitator model almost from scratch and worked out all aspects of the service: from setting up customer equipment to legal registration of interaction, - said Alexey Evdokimov, Deputy Head of Fintech, Kontur.Bank.

In 2024, SDM-Bank began active development of digital payment products. The project with Kontur. Bank and Somers is the first in the list of such initiatives, where we act as an acquiring bank not for the end client, but provide acquiring services for a partner - another financial institution. It took us only one month to fully launch the product, "said Stanislav Savelyev, Head of Digital Payments, SDM-Bank.