E-payment systems or electronic money operators are one of the most popular ways of making payments online in Russia. What is more important is that the number of customers paying with electronic money rather than bank cards is not going down. Research by one of the reputable Russian financial magazines showed that there are more than 50 million e-payment wallet holders in Russia, which is 30% more than in 2012. The total turnover of Russian payment systems reached 6 billion US dollars in 2014 and the major market leaders are Yandex.Money, WebMoney and QIWI.
EU Merchant Account still can’t believe that in 2015 most of the western online business owners don’t understand the whole importance of eWallets in Russia. If you are entering online gaming or the financial sector in the CIS market you MUST have a Russian payment system in order to accept money from Russia (and many other Russian speaking countries). In the gaming industry more than 40% of all transactions are done via electronic wallets. Have you ever wondered why finding new clients without having Russian payment system was so hard? Now you know the answer.
Due to the fact that all electronic payment systems in Russia went through a serious legalisation process in 2012 when the National Payment System law went through in parlament, you can guarantee a high level of security for all of your customers. Due to these changes, however, a thurough registration and process of obtaining a special licence for all who want to add a Russian payment system into their business is required. EU Merchant Account are ready to connect you to the world where you accept major Russian eWallets but we also want you to know a little bit more about each of them in order to increase awarenes and confidence. You can imagine that Yandex.Money is PayPal and Webmoney is Skrill, but let’s go through these eWallets in a bit more detail.
Yandex.Money
Yandex.Money was created in 2002 by the biggest search engine in Russia – Yandex. Currently Yandex.Money is the leader of all electronic wallets in Russia: 44% of internet users aged 22-40 are using Yandex.Money, 43% use Webmoney and 36% prefer QIWI when making online transactions. Also, leading market research company TNS Russia has shown that almost 15% of all Yandex.Money transactions were made in Online Gaming industry.
The level of security on Yandex.Money is very high and can be compared with obtaining a loan in a well-established bank. However, the strict procedure of obtaining an account does not stop people from using Yandex.Money – most feel encouraged by the high level of security. Compared to other eWallets Yandex.Money can only be opened in Russian rubles and has the highest commissions in contrast with other popular electronic money processors. Other than that, with Yandex.Money you can connect any of your bank cards in order to make the transfer between eWallet and bank accounts easier. Also, you can opt to receive SMS notification on all of your transactions which increases the security. The very big advantage of this electronic money processing system is that it could be easily integrating into your online shop/website by implementing an automated order processor.
WebMoney
Webmoney was founded in 1988 and currently holds the leader position in Russian electronic payments industry. Almost every third online user in Russia and CIS markets has a Webmoney account. When looking at the presence of the electronic money processing industry in the world, Webmoney strongly holds third place by turnover after AliPay (China) and PayPal (USA) and is more popular than British Skrill (ex. Moneybookers). Another interesting fact about WebMoney is that the average transaction is equivalent to 100USD, which is quite a substantial amount. Overall customers can open as many Webmoney accounts as they want (you get a unique WMID or Webmoney ID), because within the main wallet you have small purses for different currencies: Russian rubles, Euros, US dollars, Ukrainian hryvnias and another one is for gold called WMG.
Webmoney is very popular due to the high security, as each customer has to obtain a personal certificate, prove their account with passport scans and they can access their account only after a complex authentication procedure, so the security levels are pretty much similar to banks. Apart from that, WebMoney transfers have an easy and quick system from a technical point of view, which makes the whole experience of using Webmoney very convenient and reliable. The only downside of the service is that it doesn’t work with credit cards, but there are a lot of other ways of depositing and withdrawing money from your account: special cash terminals, bank transfers, online money transfer systems and kiosks.
QIWI
QIWI started its way in the electronic money processing industry in Russia only 6 years ago, but managed to secure third place by revenue in the country, overcoming such online processing giants like PerfectMoney, Moneta.ru, RBK Money and many others. Latest figures show that QIWI has 11 million active users which is two times less than Webmoney. QIWI allows to open eWallets in several currencies: USD, RUB and EUR, but the process of depositing money onto personal account goes mainly through special kiosks (190 thousand in Russia) situated in popular public places. Also, the integration with other electronic payment systems makes QIWI a very popular and unique market player. The only downside of QIWI could be, again, the high commissions but only if you want to withdraw money from the system.
Now that you are a bit more accustomed to the biggest Russian payment systems and you understand the reach as well as the popularity of eWallets in Russia you will definitely opt-in for our quick and hassle-free process of integrating electronic money processing system into your online business. Please contact us if you would like to find out more about the process or if you still have some questions about e-payments in Russia!