November 24, 2020 – Small businesses in Moldova prefer to sell their products and services on cash because the rates for online card transactions are very high. Today, banks charge up to 5% for every payment made online. That is, for every 10,000 lei that the economic agent trades through the card, 500 lei remain in the bank.

Another obstacle in boosting e-commerce is the condition imposed by banks through which the economic agent must deposit in the account at least 10% of the company’s income. It is not a fad of the bank, these are the rules imposed by the inter-operational system.

Another inconvenience is that the money that the buyer pays online for the product, arrives with a delay of a few hours on the account of the economic agent, which generates a feeling of distrust towards this kind of payments.

All these conditions are an obstacle in the development of electronic commerce in Moldova, say economic experts. To change things, the authorities want to create an alternative online payment processing platform within the MPay government electronic payment service.

A first concept of this idea was presented in the Economy Digitization Working Group of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister. Experts from the International Monetary Fund are working on it, as a result of the technical assistance provided to the Electronic Government Agency, implemented with the support of USAID and the Government of Sweden within the “Tekwill” project. The concept derives from the Roadmap for boosting the process of digitization of the national economy and development of electronic commerce, launched by the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure.

Present at the event, the Minister of Economy and Infrastructure Anatol Usatii mentioned that through this action the authorities want to create premises, both for the development of electronic commerce in Moldova, an imperative condition of time, and to reduce tariffs for online business transactions.

The topic is in the first phase of discussions, say the authors of the project. It is to be discussed with all stakeholders – business, authorities, development partners, so that by the end of next year the business and consumers will have this alternative possibility of online payments for products and services on the platform of the Government Electronic Payment Service MPay, says Iurie Țurcanu, director of the Electronic Government Agency, institution that manages Mpay.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund.