Wildberries says open for talks with foreign pay systems

MOSCOW, Aug 18 (PRIME) -- Major Russian online retailer Wildberries has welcomed readiness of international payment systems Mastercard and Visa for negotiations but has not received from them any ideas yet, the retailer said late on Tuesday in a statement.

“We have repeatedly told the representatives of the Western payment systems that their commissions are too high for the market and exceed the tariffs of the local systems, but their position has not changed,” Wildberries said.

The retailer said earlier it will charge less for the goods if paid for via the country’s payment systems MIR, the Faster Payments System (FPS), and SberPay, which will help the people to save about 40 million rubles annually. Visa said it is concerned with the decision.

Wildberries said the accusations of discrimination of the users are groundless because the tariffs are set by Mastercard and Visa, and the seller has no influence on them.

“We welcome the statements of the payment systems to conduct investigations – but we are reiterating that the main goal of a sleuthing – not to close in on themselves. Today, the Western payment systems hold a significant share on the Russian market and dictate their terms of work to the national business,” Wildberries said.

(73.4753 rubles – U.S. $1)

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