1000 Rubles And Cancer Insurance: How Banks Promote Their Products Among Recipients Of “School” Payments From Putin

On August 16, the transfer of one-time payments to families with school-age children will begin – they will receive 10,000 rubles to prepare for school. The government allocated 204 billion rubles for this purpose. The largest banks began to offer bonuses and increased cashback to recipients of “school” payments.

On August 16, the Russian government will begin to transfer one-time payments to parents for schoolchildren – President Vladimir Putin instructed them to distribute them in a message to the Federal Assembly in April. Parents of children aged 6 to 18 will receive 10,000 rubles each. The payment can be acquired for a person over 18 years of age if he has health restrictions and continues to study at school.

In total, more than 20 million children will receive “school” payments; 204 billion rubles have been allocated for this from the budget, said the Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov. As of the evening of July 13, 4.5 million parents submitted applications for the “school” payment through the portal of state services – this is almost 7 million children, Maksut Shadayev told Forbes through a representative of the Ministry of Digital Science. 

Six of the 25 largest banks have begun offering special promotions and bonuses to these government payments. There is only one condition for their receipt – payments must come to the bank card. 

For example, Alfa-Bank will add 1,000 rubles to each payment, the bank’s press service told Forbes. To do this, you need to indicate the bank details in your profile on “Gosuslugi”; for a new client, the card will be issued free of charge. In addition, Alfa-Bank promises each family insurance for one year, according to which it will pay up to 500,000 rubles in case of complications from the coronavirus.

VTB will award 1,000 bonuses (that is, 1,000 rubles) to each student, the bank’s press service said. They can be spent on purchasing goods, air, and train tickets in the mobile application or the Multibonus loyalty program website. Suppose payments are made to the Mir card. In that case, the bank will also provide annual cancer insurance for children for 6 million rubles for the insurance risk “Malignant neoplasms” and 37.5 million rubles for the insurance risk for bone marrow transplantation. Also, 1000 rubles can be withdrawn from the card. 

‘Sberbank ” will offer parents to buy a subscription to “SberPrime” for three months for one ruble if they want to receive a “school” payment to the card of this bank. After activating the subscription, 1000 bonus rubles will become available, which can be used to pay up to 20% of the purchase price at SberMarket, and another 1000 rubles, which can be used to pay up to half of the purchase price at Sbermegamarket. Each student will receive insurance for a year against an accident in the amount of 400,000 rubles from Sberbank Insurance.

Rosbank offers a payment to a debit card, “Everything is Possible”, published from July 15 to October 30, 2021. In this case, for 10,000 rubles of the “school” payment, it will receive 15% cashback (1,500 rubles) next month, the Deputy Director for retail business of Rosbank Maxim Lukyanovich.

Post Bank previously announced that the bank’s clients who received payments to a card with the Mir payment system would be able to receive 10% cashback on purchases. But this does not apply to investments in supermarkets, gambling bets, payments for housing and communal services, payment of fines, purchases of securities, and lottery tickets. Customers of Post Bank will also withdraw 10,000 rubles from a card at any ATM in the country without commission.

Uralsib will transfer 1,500 rubles if a person receives a “school” payment to a bank card connected to the Uralsib Bonus loyalty program. Bonuses will come to the same card the following month after receiving the “school” payment. They can compensate for the purchase of 1,500 rubles.

DOM.RF Bank plans to offer free card service to customers who choose their bank to make payments. The press service of  Gazprombank told Forbes that they are also preparing a proposal for “school” payments have not yet decided on the terms of possible action and ICB. Before September 1, the bank is considering launching special promotions in the categories “baby products” and “education” for all participants in the MKB Bonus program, the bank’s press service said. 

Raiffeisenbank, Sovcombank, Tinkoff Bank, and Citibank said they did not plan to pay bonuses. The press service of Otkritie Bank reported that they do not yet have any certainty on this issue.

Why do banks do this? The press service of VTB replied that they decided to offer such a campaign for recipients of “school” payments since “they support the state policy aimed at helping families with children.” The same reason was voiced by the Chief Executive Officer of Alfa-Bank Vladimir Verkhoshinsky.

But, for banks, such promotions are an opportunity to attract new clients to their ecosystem: for example, in Sberbank, to receive bonuses, you need to subscribe to SberPrime, says Anton Lopatin, director of the analytical group for financial institutions at Fitch. The offer of rewards is a tool for increasing loyalty to the bank as a whole and an opportunity to promote various kinds of bonus and partner programs and products, agrees the managing director of the NKR rating agency Mikhail Doronkin. 

Competition is the reason for the appearance of such bonus programs and payments to families with children. Their main goal is to expand the client base, said Irina Nosova, director of the ACRA Financial Institutions Ratings Group.

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