MOSCOW, February 6. /TASS/. The Mastercard international payment system is discussing an option of withdrawing cash through POS-terminals installed at the checkout counters in Russian stores, a representative of Mastercard told TASS.
"Mastercard already provides this service in several countries, we saw that many Russian banks took interest in it and together with our partners we are working on the possibility to introduce this service on this market," the representative of Mastercard said.
According to the company’s representative, a research showed that "the availability of cash withdrawal contributes to the fact that people leave more money on cards and as a result they are more likely to use a card to pay for purchases."
In this regard, providing an opportunity to withdraw cash via POS-terminals in stores could contribute to the growth of non-cash economy, the representative said.
According to the source familiar with the first results of testing the technology the amount that can be withdrawn is limited to 5,000 rubles.
"In particular the technical launch [of the project] was implemented by the Russian Standard bank and Mastercard: cash is withdrawn from a bank card via a POS-terminal in the store, where a customer shops," the source said.
In his turn, the director of the payment services and systems department of FC Otkrytie Alexander Dynin told TASS that the idea of withdrawing cash at checkout counters was discussed about a year ago.
"The Otkrytie bank did not conduct such pilot projects. The technology itself is understandable, but at the moment it is out of the legal environment and is banned by the rules of payment systems. The use of this function was discussed in expert circles about a year ago, and there were quite many questions to the legal aspects and the applicability of the tool in various retail segments. For us, the effect of the initiative is not yet obvious, we are watching the market," he said.
Earlier, the Vedomosti newspaper reported that Russian banks and payment systems are testing a service that allows you to withdraw cash from the card at the checkout of the store via POS terminals. In particular, according to the publication, Sberbank has already conducted several pilot projects. The press service of Sberbank did not comment on this topic.