Banks have asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade for 40 billion rubles to replace bank terminals

"According to ADB, Ingenico terminals account for about 50% of all operating devices on the market, or about 2 million units. According to preliminary estimates, the payment industry will spend at least 40 billion rubles on forced equipment replacement", - the ADB letter says (quoted by Vedomosti).

Ingenico was one of the leaders in the supply of terminal equipment to Russia, but sold its business and left the Russian market in mid-2022. At the end of March, the company stopped technical support of existing devices.

ADB sent a letter to Nikita Kuznetsov, Director of the Department for the Development of Domestic Trade of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry confirmed its receipt.

According to Alexey Voilukov, Vice-president of the association, subsidies for import substitution of French terminals will be required by banks, domestic equipment manufacturers and other market participants facing this problem. The representative of the Central Bank noted that import substitution of payment terminals is a systemic task that needs to be solved at the level of manufacturers. The interlocutor of the publication clarified that Russian developers offer software and operating systems to replace foreign ones, but it is not always possible to find alternatives in the production of equipment and infrastructure.

Market participants told Vedomosti that the replacement process may take 1-2 years, and subsidies will help speed up the process. The representative of Otkritie Bank noted that the existing equipment meets the safety requirements, it can be used and replaced gradually in the future. A similar idea was voiced by Alexey Kirichek, Head of the Acquiring and Payment Services Development Department at Alfa-Bank. He said that the Russian Federation has a stock of spare parts for terminals to ensure their operation for some time. In addition, the withdrawal of the supplier does not lead to the termination of the existing equipment. Kirichek believes that there is no great need to subsidize banks directly. Alexander Rastorguev, Director for the development of payment services at the Evotor IT company, expressed the opinion that the support of domestic equipment manufacturers would be more effective.