IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT SONY ERICSSON’S OFFICIAL DEALER IN ARMENIA DECIDED TO ‘AMAZE’ THE MARKET WITH NEW SERVICE

ArmInfo
2008-11-19 17:37:00

ArmInfo. Sony Ericsson’s official dealer in Armenia decided to "amaze"
the market with new "unprecedented" service. The company store of
cellular telephones offered the population extremely unprofitable
conditions of service by banking cards. If a mobile telephone and
accessories are bought by cards of the Armenian Card national payment
system, the seller adds 2% of the goods value to the price, and 3%
in case of purchase by cards of Visa and Master Card international
systems. The store didn’t specify what marketing solutions made Sony
Ericsson representatives choose work principles running counter to
international standards, however, the store said that the issue of
levying the commission fee in case of cashless settlement by cards
was discussed with INECOBANK which secures transactions through its
own POS-terminal.

Meanwhile, David Makaryan, the head of INECOBANK plastic cards
department, denied pointblank any agreements with Sony Ericsson on
levying commission fees, and this contradicts both the regulations
of the bank’s work and basic principles of securing payment
operations. According to him, levied commission fees are the initiative
of the store itself, and unfortunately, it is impossible to see whether
the merchant partner observes the terms of the contract with the bank.

However, in a conversation with ArmInfo correspondent, the financial
director of a large merchant network which has been operating in the
Armenian market for over 3 years and has acquired no POS-terminals
yet, complained of extremely unprofitable terms of acquiring. The
director, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that banks want to
levy high commission fees from transactions – up to 3% of the deal,
in extremis – up to 2.75%.

Moreover, he thinks that banks have a quite jealous attitude
to possible installation of one more POS- terminal of a
bank-competitor. The banks demand exclusive rights for themselves
even despite the fact that in the overwhelming majority of cases
terminals are capable to serve the cards of only one international
payment system in addition to the national one. "As a famous brand,
eventually we’ll have to launch POS- terminals in our network,
however, the terms we are offered may affect our price policy", –
the interlocutor said explaining the reason of Sony Ericsson dealers’
behavior in the quite competitive market.

To note, the Armenian government has prepared a new draft law on
acquiring development. The legislative decision implies compulsory
installation of POS-terminals for merchant enterprises occupying a
trade area from 100 sq.m.

since 2009; from 50 sq.m. since 2010, from 15 sq.m. since
2011. According to experts, the law provisions may seriously change
the volume of installed terminal equipment and abruptly increase the
cashless payments in economy.

Experts think this decision may cause a slight growth in prices of
certain kinds of goods.