The largest Russia's bank recently surprised those Russian residents who are not its customers. Sberbank was going to take a commission for withdrawing money from their ATMs from cards of foreign banks. Considering that almost half of the ATMs in the country belong to Sberbank, the bank could receive additional profit. But citizens, on the contrary, suffer losses. However, the first round of struggle for this money, Sberbank lost.

Come to us

Everyone knows that if you insert your card into an ATM of an outside bank, you will be charged a commission. And it will be done not by another's credit organization, but by your own one. Usually the ATM will say something like this: "We do not take a commission for our services, but your bank may charge a commission". In fact, everything is somewhat different. Your bank (issuer) will withdraw from you a certain amount, and then settle with that bank (equine), in whose ATM you withdrew money. These rules and the size of the commission are set by payment systems, the most popular of which are Visa and Master Card. But more recently, the Visa has allowed banks to withdraw their commission on their own.

Sberbank did not fail to take advantage of this, and Herman Gref publicly announced that the bank intends to collect payment for the use of its ATMs by other banks' customers. It is likely that not only Sberbank came up with such an idea, but only the largest bank of the country decided to voice it publicly. And Herman Oskarovich quite cynically stated: "Be clients of the bank so as not to pay a fee." Thus, the banker politely hinted to citizens that they should not choose other banks, even if they are much more convenient than Sberbank.

And all would be nothing, if not for one circumstance, or rather an assumption. Suppose Sberbank starts taking a commission from cardholders of third-party banks. Does this mean that their banks will not take the same commission? From the point of view of logic, of course, no. But from the point of view of Russian realities, most likely it will be so. That is, a Russian who uses the card of, say, VTB-24, is likely to pay both his bank and Sberbank, that is, twice. Now, for withdrawing money from someone else's ATM, banks charge several hundred rubles, all in different ways (and some, by the way, do not take this commission at all). Have to multiply by two.

Grabbing someone else's

More precisely, it is not necessary yet, because the initiative of Sberbank was blocked by the state National system of payment cards. The fact is that according to the banking rules the credit organization should treat all payment systems the same. That is, if Sberbank "cuts" the commission from the "Visa" cards, it should do the same with the cards "Master Card", "China Union Pay" and any other systems, including the Russian "Mir". But the NSPC, to which Mir belongs, opposed this approach. Accordingly, this puts the clients in unequal conditions, which means that neither Sberbank nor any other bank will be able to take the commission from other banks' clients.

The NSCP logically stated that if you adopt such a rule, clients will try to immediately withdraw large sums from ATMs so as not to pay once again for getting the cache. And this already puts into question the plans of the Russian financial authorities to withdraw to non-cash payments, so that Russians can use less money and pay cards less often. It's civilized, and, most importantly, it allows the authorities to control the financial flows in the country and reduce the share of the shadow market where only the cache is used.

Not yet evening

The most ridiculous thing here is that in words Herman Gref wholly and completely supports the good idea of switching to a non-cash basis (he in general is a big supporter of innovation and progress). But in fact, Sberbank, apparently, tried to slow down this process, licked at the opportunity to get additional profit. Everything is obvious. There are about 200 thousand ATMs in the country. 80 thousand of them belong to Sberbank. Its "cash machines" are on every corner. And a Russian, who urgently needs cash, unable to withdraw in his ATM, will go to Sberbank. And pay a commission. The calculation is simple and even rough. Herman Gref would have possibly achieved his aim, hadn't he started to voice the initiative publicly.

It was necessary to keep silence and, using the permission of "Visa", began to withdraw the commission. And then to make agreement with everybody, including the anti-monopolists agencies. But we will not say that it could have happened that way. And for that there are two reasons. First, history does not tolerate a subjunctive mood. And, secondly, there is still a hope in the soul that not everyone in our country can quietly agree. But at the same time, the soul is concerned about the fact that Sberbank and Herman Gref will not abandon attempts to earn money on those who urgently need it. Therefore, we advise all Russians who use other banks to be ready for this. Although, as you know, our citizens are used to getting stronger.