Taxi companies warned about the imminent return of “bombs”

RBC understood what problems the taxi companies faced and what it threatens passengers with.

At the end of March, the NEXT taxi fleet (with about 10 thousand drivers per month in Moscow and Yekaterinburg) sent a letter to the Central Bank with a request to prohibit a unilateral increase in lease payments and provide benefits or refinancing. RBC has a copy of the letter, its authenticity was confirmed by the general director of this company Evgeny Ermolaev. According to him, leasing companies have unilaterally increased the amount of payments, including under previously concluded agreements. As an example, he cited an increase in the cost of Major Leasing from 79 thousand to 96 thousand rubles. for one vehicle. According to Ermolaev, they were also notified of their intention to increase payments by a number of other companies, including CTRL Leasing. “If the authorities do not take any measures, taxi companies will not be able to fulfill their obligations, some of them will begin bankruptcy procedures, which will lead to a reduction in jobs,” Yevgeny Ermolaev warned. According to him, the taxi company also sent letters to the FAS and the Moscow prosecutor’s office with a request to check the legality and validity of the actions of leasing companies.

The representative of the Central Bank did not answer the question about NEXT’s appeal, but canceled that its competence does not include regulation of the leasing industry. At the same time, the interlocutor of RBC said that the government is developing a bill that will provide for a grace period for lessees by analogy with the law on credit holidays, as well as the possibility of early redemption (in the cases described by the agreement) of the leased asset at the price established by the agreement, if it was concluded before 1 March 2022.

The FAS has not yet received the letter, the representative of the service said. RBC sent a request to the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office.

As a representative of CTRL Leasing explained to RBC, after the Central Bank raised the key rate to 20%, banks increased the financing rate for them within the framework of loans already issued, through which leasing transactions were financed. The company is partly funded at a floating rate linked to the key rate, and partly at a fixed rate. Many banks have unilaterally increased the rates of “CTRL leasing”, respectively, the company was forced to increase leasing payments, says its representative. According to him, they are now developing a joint program with Yandex.Taxi to support taxi companies in the form of compensation for lease payments. RBC sources in two more leasing companies confirmed that they had notified customers of their desire to raise prices. RBC sent a request to Major Leasing.

According to Natalya Lozinskaya, executive director of the National Taxi Union, an effective way to solve this problem would be to fix the maximum interest on lease payments issued after the key rate increase, and prohibit the increase in rates on loans already issued. Lozinskaya adds that it is necessary “to initiate a review of the legitimacy and validity of the actions of leasing companies.”

As Sergei Uchitel, partner at Pen & Paper, explained, there is a general rule that a unilateral refusal to change the procedure for fulfilling leasing obligations is inadmissible, except in cases “if such right and grounds are directly provided for by the terms of the contract.”

According to Skladchikov, the owners of small taxi companies, due to their inability to solve economic problems, are now trying to sell their business and vehicles. At the same time, according to the director of GDel, in the taxi sector, there is not a decrease, but an increase in the number of drivers and staff turnover. “Any crisis situation in the country leads to the fact that people in search of work from other areas go to taxis. But all this is temporary, due to a drawdown in orders and, as a result, a small income. Some use the status of a taxi driver as a part-time job, for example on weekends,” he describes the situation. Another interlocutor in the market noted that new drivers “quickly leave because of the heavy workload and low salary,” and among existing ones there is a significant outflow.

Dmitry Kovalenko from ComfortService says that they did not turn to departments or aggregators for help, as they consider it “inefficient and useless.” “We will now reduce business and leave the market. This is the only option in the current conditions,” he said. According to Kovalenko, if the price level persists, this will lead to a significant obsolescence of the taxi fleet (the year of production of an operated car in Moscow will decrease to 2012, in the regions – to 1999), an increase in the falsification of insurance, mass bypasses of the Integrated Information System “Taxi Operation Analytics” (Digital profile of the driver, which contains data on the rights, permission to transport, fines and the number of hours worked). “In the near future, we should expect that the taxi will cease to be a safe vehicle,” predicts Kovalenko.

According to Natalia Lozinskaya, to remedy the situation, subsidies are needed for the purchase of taxi cars at the federal level, as well as holidays “for leasing payments for six months and access for taxi companies to cheap loans in order to refinance leasing.”

At the end of March, the Moscow mayor’s office asked the government to allow taxi drivers and taxi companies to purchase OSAGO policies for a period of one month instead of a year under current rules. The mayor’s office also increased the amount of subsidies for the purchase of cars and carsharing, however, one of RBC’s interlocutors in the taxi market noted that taxi companies will receive these payments only in 2023, “when it will be too late.”

A representative of Yandex.Taxi said that they are now discussing with partners “support measures aimed at reducing costs and improving business conditions.” A representative of Citymobil said that they were “aware of the state of affairs at taxi companies” and “raised this issue together with the Department of Transport of Moscow.” “We hope that in the current situation, support measures will be taken that will allow taxi companies to balance their operating costs and create conditions for further business development,” he said.

According to a representative of the Maxim company, they analyze the balance of supply and demand on a daily basis and “some kind of tariff adjustment to maintain the profitability of transportation will take place in the near future.” “We will try to keep taxi services accessible to people. The main thing that we could and have already done for carriers, including taxi companies, is to reduce the commission for information services of the service to a minimum of 5%,” he said. The representative of “Maxim” also noted that in the new economic conditions it would be a more sustainable model to increase the share of self-employed in the industry.

RBC sent a request to the Ministry of Transport, the Department of Transport of Moscow and the Russian government.