Federal Law No. 103-FZ on Payment Agents

Full title: Federal Law No. 103-FZ of June 3, 2009 “On the Activity of Accepting Payments from Individuals Carried Out by Payment Agents”. It governs situations where an intermediary accepts money from individuals on behalf of a supplier: for telecom services, utilities, goods.

What it establishes

• Who a payment agent is: a company or sole proprietor that accepts payments from individuals under an agreement with a supplier.
• Who a payment sub-agent is: one that works under an agreement with an agent.
• Obligations: use cash register equipment, issue a receipt, give the payer information about the payment and the agent, and credit the money received to a special bank account.
• Oversight: the tax authorities monitor compliance, and violations carry fines under the Code of Administrative Offenses.

How it relates to international payments

In foreign trade, a payment agent is a company that pays a foreign supplier on an importer’s instructions or receives proceeds for an exporter. This is a relationship between companies. It is based on an agency agreement under the Civil Code, and 103-FZ, which is designed for accepting money from individuals, generally does not apply to it. For such deals, the rules of currency control and financial monitoring matter more.

What to watch for

A reference to 103-FZ in the description of a service for payments abroad says nothing in itself about the agent’s reliability. Look at other things: who you sign the agreement with, where the execution time is written, how the exchange rate and the fee are fixed, what you will have in hand for your bank after the payment, and where the money sits until the payment is executed.

In a deal through a broker, these terms are fixed before the roubles are debited, and we select the agent from a pool of vetted agents. More details: Broker, agent or bank.

This is a general overview, not legal advice.